Beneath The Milky Twilight
by 0Blue-Bird0
Summary: House sitting should be an easy job. After all, there wasn't much required other than making sure that the house didn't gather dust or fall down on their heads. With his childhood friend Tashigi there, Zoro didn't expect this job to be anything BUT boring. But of course, Luffy's just the type to make any job hellish. Literally. (Demon!Luffy/Human!Zoro NamTash and Sanuso)
1. The Calm Before the Storm

/nervous shuffling/ Ah, so yeah- I'm just going to apologize for anyone confused by why there's suddenly a new story instead of the old one, but I'll just explain it with a quick 'I went back and changed some stuff'

actually, a lot of stuff.

Enough stuff that I thought that it might be better to just start _all over_ with posting this. While the major ideas are still the same, the biggest change is the introduction of Tashigi into the story (as Kuina's twin sister).With that being said, the main pairing is (as always) Zolu, with beta pairings most likely being SanUso and (my personal fav) NamTash. I can't promise how long it'll take me to actually make these pairings official, but yeah, these are what you should expect and anything else is pretty much fair game~

Plus- I there's something cool about starting a long story on the first day of the year (now all I have to do is make it end on December 1st, right?)

Warnings: in this chapter none really. There's a general warning in this whole piece for inappropriate language, probably some violence, and maybe a little hanky panky (although for full on hanky panky, you'd have to go to the AO3 version of this story 3 ). Also warning for the fact that, while I have the major ideas set in stone, a lot of this story is me playing by ear, so it might be a little rough too (it's also unbeta'd, but with everyone in school, there's not much that I can do about that)

edit: also, instead of being 'Under Clear Skies' (because I get an error when I use that title) I'm renaming it at well. it's just easier all around~

Plus the title is a line from the song 'Kiss Me' (which the Fray did a wonderful, wonderful cover of)

But, again, sorry about any weirdness with this and have a happy 2015 everyone~!

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><p>When Zoro had been 7, he'd run away from home.<p>

Years later and he only barely remembered his parents faces, but he didn't regret the decision- no matter how rash it'd been. Where he'd lived with them had never been a home to him, and even now he had no urge to return to them or seek any sort of reunion.

For weeks he had wandered, fueled by a desire just to _go,_ and aided by the help of strangers until he'd stumbled upon the dojo of Dracule Koshiro. Koshiro had been, and still was, a kind and unassuming man. Standing somewhere near 5"11 and with wrinkles that lined his mouth and eyes, he was the kind father figure that Zoro had never had in the 7 years prior to finding him. And Koshiro had taught him the ways of the sword- like a samurai might have been taught centuries ago, despite the fact sword fighting had, for the most part, fallen out of fashion. He was responsible for instilling a deep, deep love of swords in Zoro's heart.

But even without that, his childhood had been odd, mostly because until then, he had been able to see strange things: Fairies and demons and spirits. Or at least, that's what he had believed them to be when he'd been 7. Creatures, some of them more human-like than others, had helped him out from time to time, pointing out shelters or warning him about untrustworthy people.

Except, now he knew that they'd been nothing more of manifestations of his subconscious; the product of some long disease that doctors enjoyed just rattling off.

Years ago he'd been prescribed medication for his 'treatment' and he had believed that that was the end of it. After what else could there have been to it? Before the medication he'd been plagued by these images of nightmarish creatures, and after he'd seen nothing. Nothing at all.

And there'd been no reason to think much of it. Until now at least.

0o0o0

"Ohh, you two really do look cute together!" Zoro, who'd been trying to ignore the woman up until this point, scowled at the comment; as useless as it was to wish that he was anywhere but there, he still did it. Next to him, Tashigi was much better about schooling her own reaction into something more appropriate. She patted the older woman's hand as she accepted the bag from her with a shy smile.

"Thank you for that Mrs. Pearlston." She said, the woman just eating up her shy expression. "But we're not like that, _honest_."

Pearlston watched her with shrewd eyes before leaning forward and whispering in a voice that, intentionally, carried anyways, "Oh, I understand dear." She spoke with the wisdom of a mother to her child. "Don't worry, we all go through rough parts in our relationships. My husband," she made a dismissive gesture, "such a _stubborn_ man! But," she clamped a hand on Tashigi's shoulder, "I'm sure that the two of you'll be able to work through it." She winked at her and Tashigi laughed, although Zoro was still able to see how uncomfortable she was.

"I'll keep that in mind." Tashigi finally promised her and finally Mrs. Pearlston let the two of them go; shooing them away as if they'd been holding her up.

Once out of hearing range, Tashigi let out a low and long sigh. "That was frustrating" she muttered before turning to glare at Zoro. "And you-" she smacked the hand not carrying the bag against his chest, "Next time say something to her too! It's annoying if you're just glaring off into space the whole time!"

Zoro glared right back. "What's the point? It's not like she would have believed me either." He snapped.

Tashigi continued to glare, but couldn't say that he was wrong. She didn't know how many times she had wasted her breath telling these people over and over again that Zoro and her weren't like 'that' at all, only for people to ignore her. Because it wasn't like a young man and woman couldn't live together without something fishy going on, right? She huffed at the idea of it all. It was annoying not being able to go into town without someone commenting on their relationship or speculating on how 'rocky' it was. The fact that she got the brunt of the questions, while Zoro just glared down everyone who came near, didn't help. Maybe it was the stereotype of small towns, but it certainly felt like the two of them, as outsiders, were treated like topics of gossip more than anything else.

But, this was a small town and they were already the odd ones out so it wouldn't have been good if she'd adopted Zoro's attitude and became openly hostile too.

They walked side by side back to their beat up old pickup truck, and in the bed of the truck were some of the other groceries that they had bought today, just covered in a black tarp.

Tashigi put the newest bag in the back too before walking around to the passengers side of the car, while Zoro immediately went to the driver's side. Once inside the car she leaned her head back against the seat rest while Zoro started it up and pulled out of the dusty parking lot. While he was shit with directions, he was mildly better when driving than walking, so Tashigi trusted him with driving every so often. Besides, it was hot outside, and with a broken AC, she didn't want to do anything but rest her eyes for a while; but before she could relax, the feeling that they were forgetting something rose up in the back of her mind.

"Oh, right," she turned her head to the side to look at him. "How are you with your medication by the way? Are you running low yet?" She wasn't his keeper or anything, but she couldn't help but remember her father asking her, just a few weeks ago, to look after Zoro since he tended to forget these sorts of things; and although the local pharmacy was already closed for the day, they could always come back tomorrow and place an order for more if Zoro needed to.

But Zoro avoided her gaze like a dog that had just chewed on a pair of shoes. "I don't know. I think that I ran out already." he muttered. The last time he remembered taking one of those little orange tablets was a week ago; maybe even two weeks? Although he was careful not to give her a definite time frame since that would undoubtedly make things worse.

"You ran out?" Tashigi parroted him, her tone sounding close to someone who was about to blow their lid. "No- of course you did." She hissed. There were a million things that she wanted to say, but she already knew that it would have been wasted on him, so she thought of her blood pressure and bit her tongue.

Zoro'd always been bad at regularly taking his medication, but her father had been good at keeping up with that sort of stuff even when Zoro couldn't. By this point, if Zoro wasn't going to stay on top of his own medication then there was little that she could do- even if it was something that her father had requested. Zoro was a grown man dammit!

Still, she thought with a vindictive snort, he should have counted himself lucky that he didn't need the medication for any sort of serious disease because with the way that he took care of himself, he would have died already.

When it looked like Tashigi would drop the conversation, Zoro sighed and turned on the radio and set it to a soft rock station, glad that there were radio towers with signals strong enough to be heard all of the way out here. He turned the wheel and started down the road that would take them out of town. While it was easy to get lost here on foot on account of all of the old hiking paths, when driving a car there was only one road to follow.

It was a Monday morning so the roads were clear and he didn't have to worry about anything beyond uneven roads and the occasional pothole. About ten minutes in and he started to watch the side of the road. His eyes scanned until he saw a bright orange sign post sticking out of the ground. He slowed down the car and then turned onto a side road next to the post that lead deeper into the forest.

Clear skies disappeared underneath the green of leaves and the overreaching branches of the trees. What started as a gentle incline on the road grew steeper as they started driving up one of the hills in the area. Every so often was another orange post- put there a few months ago when they had just moved in by Tashigi. As much as he didn't want to admit it, the signs were obnoxiously bright and did their jobs well in leading him and they made it easier for him to not get lost.

Tashigi stared out the window the entire drive, until they reached a break in the trees and came upon a lone two story house in the woods. Compared to the peaceful and green scenery around it, the house stood out like a sore thumb. It was mostly black and built in an American Gothic style- small turrets included.

Although neither of them knew the previous owner well, he was actually Tashigi's uncle, and Koshiro had enlisted the both of them in house sitting for the man while he traveled the world.

Zoro pulled the car to a stop in front of the house and the two of them quickly got out. While Zoro walked around to the back to start unloading groceries, Tashigi tipped her head back and called out, "Kitetsu!"

There was a pause before they both heard a series of excited and booming barks. Then suddenly, a black mass that looked more like a bear than anything else, darted around the house. But instead of being frightened, Tashigi welcomed the animal with open arms. It jumped at her and reared back on two legs to place its paws on her shoulders, panting in her face.

Kitetsu, a 4 year old Tibetan Mastiff, was Tashigi's dog. She weighted over 160lbs but was a rather mildly tempered dog for her size, if not a _bit_ too excitable. After a few seconds of tail wagging and face slobering on Kitetsu's end and excited cooing on Tashigi's, Tashigi made the giant beast of an animal sit and she immediately began scratching behind Kitetsu's ears.

Zoro, with arms full of groceries walked past the two of them, although not without the dog leaving Tashigi's side for a second to bump her head against his side, and entered the house. Due to how isolated they were and the fact that Kitetsu was here if anything went wrong, they rarely locked their doors.

Zoro walked through the entry way and into the kitchen, which was large and full of black granite counter tops and shiny metal appliances. Tashigi followed a minute or so later with more groceries, and the two of them started sorting and putting everything away. The cold things into the refrigerator, the alcohol, of course, got its own shelf in the fridge, and its own cabinet, and so on. Tashigi organized spices in one cabinet while Zoro handled the canned goods. Between the two of them, the process didn't take longer than a few minutes. By the time that Zoro finished putting away the last box of sugary cereal, Tashigi was standing by the doorway, phone in one hand and Kitetsu by her side. When Zoro passed her she mentioned that she was taking Kitetsu for a walk and to not expected her to be back for a while. He grunted in response.

While a walk sounded nice at the moment, he instead went into the small gym that was installed in one of the backrooms and changed into a looser pair of pants, disregarding his shirt entirely. On old scar ran across his chest and rippled as he moved but Zoro paid it no mind as he walked over to the pull up bar and grabbed it. He was tall enough that he had to bend his legs and cross them over at the ankle to keep from touching the ground. Once up there he set out a fast pace that had his muscles burning and sweat quickly forming on his brow and neck. Up do, up down. He went on for a while, and when he was done there he moved on to his weights.

Someday he'd have to thank the owner of the house for his extensive collection of weights. There wasn't a place in town that sold weights above 30lbs so he'd almost thought that finding anything worth his time would have been impossible, but this Mihawk guy must have been strong because there was enough weight here to even keep _him_ happy. And to keep the exercise from being too top heavy, he included squats with his lifts; his ankles and thighs soon straining underneath all of the weight.

He worked until his body was screaming and he was covered in sweat. He probably would have worked even harder if it hadn't been for the fact that Tashigi had been recently warning him about overexerting himself. His goal was to be the strongest, and so he had never been easy with himself in terms of working out, and sometimes he tended to go overboard with everything. While he didn't think that it mattered that much, Tashigi had often gotten on his back about pretty much everything from hurting himself from not stretching enough to working out too fast or too hard. And while he usually didn't like people telling him what to do, he knew that she was knowledgeable enough that her advice could be trusted.

Besides, she also was often in the gym. They didn't work out together per say, but sometimes she would help him with his stretches and he would spot for her when she lifted. Despite her small size, Tashigi could easily kick the ass of most of the people who tried to mess with her, and she was often a challenge for him whenever they fought with one sword each- although, unlike her sister, she rarely won against him.

And it wasn't even the fact that she was the daughter of the Master of the dojo that made Tashigi a good swordswoman either. She was often awkward and clumsy, but she knew what hard work was and once in a fight with someone, her whole demeanor could change; although she lacked the aggressive edge that her sister had had. If Tashigi and her fighting style were like rolling ocean waves, then Kuina would had been a typhoon.

But it wasn't just in fighting styles where they differed. Kuina had also had a more vocal and somewhat cocky attitude than Tashigi. She'd been a good fighter, but he had learned years ago that so much of her bravado had just been a way to cover up the insecurity caused by her gender and sex. While Tashigi also took offense to people not taking her seriously due to being a woman, to his knowledge, she had never suffered with the idea like Kuina had. Although he wondered if it would have been a different story, had she still been alive.

Zoro dried off a little with one of the hand towels that they kept in the gym, but went to go take a shower anyways. Since the house was so big, there were multiple baths in the house, and Zoro had claimed one of the ones on the ground floor for himself. Growing up in a dojo with so many people had meant that he usually took short, cold showers, since the water heater for the place had never been that good.

Being able to take warmer showers without fearing that the water would run out, or without worrying about someone else needing it was a weird luxury; although he still preferred shorter showers, and was usually out in the time that it took to wash his body and hair. Tashigi though, took to the hot water like a duck, and she'd said multiple times that the house's water heater was her favorite part of the place.

He toweled off after his shower with a nondescript black towel before changing into yet another pair or loose pants and a loose shirt this time. By the time that he actually left the bathroom, he could hear the click of Kitetsu's claws on the wooden floor somewhere and Tashigi moving around in the house.

He walked towards the living room and got there in time to see Tashigi pull off the jacket she'd gone out in. "You're back early. Why?" he asked in a tone that someone who wasn't familiar with him would have taken as rude.

Tashigi shrugged. "Kitetsu started getting fussy so I brought her back." She looked at her phone. "Plus there's supposed to be a bad storm later and I'd rather not get caught up in it." Zoro nodded and passed her to sit on the couch. Once he sat down, Kitetsu was immediately by his side, laying her huge head down in his lap. When she'd been younger, she had always been climbing into other's laps, convinced that she was some sort of 20-something pound lap dog. Luckily they had broken her of that habit.

Zoro scratched behind her ears as he turned on the tv. He didn't particularly care about what the tv was playing and so he settled on a channel that was playing some sort of generic looking action movie.

Behind him, Tashigi was getting on the phone with someone, and Zoro realized as she left the room that it must have been her book editor.

Calling Tashigi a fan of swords would have been a _gross_ under exaggeration. More than fighting with swords, she loved learning about them; especially Japanese katana. While Zoro excelled in just the _art_ of fighting, Tashigi knew the _history_ behind it. She knew the names of swords, who had crafted them, ect, and she'd list it all off with the happiest look on her face. It was so bad that she'd even named Kitetsu after a famous sword maker. She even did research on swords and wrote papers and books about some of them. While Zoro had never bothered to read any of them, they were apparently a hit in the circle of people who were into collecting swords or sword histories.

Either way, it brought in money that she used outside of the amount that Mihawk had left behind to keep up his house. And since Zoro didn't have a job himself, it wasn't like he could say anything negative about it.

0o0o0

The first clap of thunder is so out of nowhere that it actually took him by surprise. From his spot on the couch, he looked over to the window to see it quickly becoming dark outside. Another clap of thunder actually made him get up to look outside. The clouds, from were he could see them, swirled ominously, so dark grey that they bordered on purple, as a contrast to the peeps of light blue sky that were still visible. He shrugged off the weird weather. Just so long as the storm passed quickly. He walked back to the couch, and rubbed Kitetsu's shaggy head again. But it wasn't soon before rain began lashing at the windows and roof, and within seconds it increased from light rain to buckets of water.

Tashigi, apparently done with her call from earlier, wandered into the living room and stood next to him to look out. "Well, I'm glad that we came back early." She muttered before pulling back. "Anyways, help me find some candles Zoro. The forecast said that we should be wary of possible blackouts." Zoro nodded and she took off for the kitchen, where most of them were held. He waited a moment before gathering some of the other ones scattered around the house- but he left the ones in Tashigi's room alone.

A few minutes later and he brought them all back into the living room and placed them on the living room table. Outside it was still pouring and the sky was still a troubling shade of grey. The action movie was still playing on the tv, but it was obvious that it was drawing to a close as one of the chiseled main characters started to monologue at the other one. Kitetsu had taken over his spot on the couch and Zoro walked back over to shoo her away. She flashed her puppy eyes at him and made a pathetic whining sound, but to no avail as he pushed her off of the couch anyways. But before he could relax himself, Tashigi was pushing him over with a quick 'Move Zoro' before she took over the other side of the couch and the remote.

"Hey- I was watching that." He said as she changed the channel.

Tashigi rolled her eyes and kept on flipping until she got to a show that she liked. She reclined with Kitetsu's head in her lap and laughed at the action happening on the screen. It was a sitcom and Zoro quickly found himself losing interest. The actors on screen became harder and harder to pay attention to until he just stopped entirely.

He didn't realize that he'd fallen asleep until he was woken up by a crash and a shout; all nearly at the same time. He shot up off of the couch but was immediately thrown off by the darkness. It was fucking pitch black, except for the time bit of light that came from the windows.

He glanced towards the tv to see what time it was, but there were no glowing lights from the cable box underneath it. Somewhere near him, he could hear Tashigi swearing and by the time he looked over at her, she'd found her phone, and had turned the flashlight mode on. Her face was illuminated by a bluish light as she looked around.

"What was that?" he asked, rubbing his head and face now.

"That boom? Thunder." She said with a snort. "Kitetsu?" she called out, and Zoro just realized that he couldn't see the big dog anywhere.

"When did she run off?" he asked and Tashigi shrugged.

"She went somewhere else about half an hour ago, but I swear, if I have to pry her out from under the bed again…" she trailed off before looking down. "But let's light some of these candles first. Here." She tossed something at him and when he caught it he realized that it was a flashlight.

"Thanks." He clicked it on and swept the beam of light across the room while Tashigi lit candles, bringing even more light. He walked over to the window and looked out. "Fuck." He muttered when he saw just how dark the sky outside was. Granted, it was hard to see with all of the water coming down, but he could see the dark clouds beyond that. They were so dark that they were nearly black. When the hell had the storm gotten that bad?

"Oi Tashigi." He called out, still looking around. "Did those reports say anything about how long the storm would last?"

"No." she called back. "Although none of them said that they'd be this bad. But it's not like I can check now. The power's down, so no wifi." She huffed and Zoro suddenly felt her at his side. They were silent for about a minute before she asked, "Is it weird that this storm gives me a bad feeling?"

Zoro didn't answer immediately. When he finally found something to say, it was, "Not really. If your instincts are telling you something's wrong, then you should listen to them."

"Ah- you sound surprisingly wise today Zoro." He flinched away from her palm of his forehead. "Are you sure that you aren't sock?' she teased. Zoro glared at her.

"Anyways," he continued. "I have a weird feeling too." He turnd his head away. "Where is Kitetsu anyways? Didn't she start tearing things up the last time that there was a thunderstorm?"

Tashigi snorted. "Don't even remind me of that." But her frown deepened. "But she has been too quiet. Kitetsu!" she shouted, and they waited a few seconds. When Tashigi turned back to him, he could see a bit of worry in her eyes. "You don't think that she got out, do you?"

Kitetsu was usually a well tempered dog. Tashigi herself was a bit of a meek person, so in the beginning, the dog had often not listened to her. Tibetan Mastiffs needed firm owners and she just hadn't been one, but over time she'd grown more and more into the role. While the dog might have run away for the hell of it in the beginning, she wouldn't have now. Still he said,

"Let's go check around anyways." She nodded and they both went up stairs to check the rooms, calling out all the while. She wasn't hiding under any beds or in any closets and they finally moved the search downstairs, grabbing their coats on the way in case they had to go outside.

They finally found her in one of the backrooms that lead to the back porch. She sat in front of the glass door, focusing on it with enough intensity to leave both of them stunned. "Kitetsu?" Tashigi called out, and while her dog's ear's flicked towards her, she didn't move otherwise. Zoro and Tashigi shared a confused look. "Is there anything out there?" she muttered, moving to stand beside the dog, but despite her efforts, she just couldn't see anything. She jumped when Kitetsu suddenly started to whine and paw at the glass. "Eh? Kitetsu? What's wrong girl?" Tashigi asked, rubbing the top of her head.

"Bathroom maybe?" Zoro suggested, also surprised by the dog's sudden antsiness.

"Maybe." Tashigi muttered, but the frown remained on her face as she looked out. It was still terrible outside, but she knew that she'd rather just get a little wet than let Kitetsu go inside. She sighed, but clipped the leash to Kitetsu's collar and opened up the door. Even though it wasn't necessary, Zoro followed after them. They walked out onto the porch, but Zoro looked up when he heard Tashigi's gasp. He couldn't help but make his own surprised noise.

While just before the sky had looked close to black,there were suddenly more colors there. Almost like an arrow shooting across the sky, there were streaks of blues and greens, and even a little red.

"That's certainly not natural." Tashigi whispered, sounding both nervous and a bit awed. Even though the rain was still coming down in sheets, the colors in the sky still stood out. The two of them stood in silence there before suddenly Kitetsu lunged forwards, taking Tashigi with her.

"Kite-ah!' she screamed as she just barely avoided falling down the stairs there. Kitetsu kept running, pulling along her owner and, letting out wild barks all the while.

"Oi-wait!" Zoro shouted, taking off after them. The visibility was horrible and he could just barely see the back of Tashigi's pink coat.

Overhead a bolt of lightning zigzagged and a thunder boomed.


	2. When it Rains it Pours

Ahh, maybe I should say it here, but expect an irregular update schedule. I'm back at school, but I need to get my grades back up, so while I'm always writing whenever I can, I don't have enough time to keep to a schedule (yet)

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><p>As he ran, Zoro cursed at the low visibility and all of the shrubs and roots hidden out of his, admittedly small, line of sight. The rain made it impossible to see anything clearly, even if he still had the flashlight clutched in a death grip; had the rain not been so loud, he might have heard the splintering as his fingers dug into the plastic.<p>

He was just going by sound at this point, and luckily- although he'd certainly never considered it a good thing before- Tashigi had a large set of lungs on her. Even with the occasional boom of thunder, he could hear her screams and shouts from up ahead. Additionally, even with Kitetsu dragging her, she wasn't much faster than him. He'd find her just so long as she kept a tight grip on that leash.

A few times he got turned around and had had to shout a few times before he heard Tashigi's voice again. He ran through the dark, blind, until he suddenly crashed into something.

He grunted and Tashigi screamed and they both fell down; landing in a heap of wet limbs. Tashigi groaned under Zoro's extra weight and Zoro smacked his head into a bush. Slowly, the two of them got up and sat there in pain for a few seconds before looking up to glare at each other through the rain.

"What the hell was that Zoro?!" Tashigi shouted at him, her face red and hair wild; mud covered the lower half of her face and he could see a crack running through the left lens in her glasses. Zoro glared back with a fire in his eyes and scratches all over his face.

"You fucking tell me! What the hell is your dog doing anyways?" he swiveled his head around for the mangy mutt. Where the hell was it anyways?!

"I don't know!" Tashigi screamed, throwing her hands up in frustration. It was hard to tell if she was madder at him, herself, or the dog. "Kitetsu dragged me for so long that I had to let go or risk dislocating my arm." Her hand drifted to said arm.

Tashigi seemed to wilt even more and Zoro took a rare moment of pity on her. As mad as he was, a part of him knew that she must have felt the same, or maybe even worse. It was her dog after all.

He paused to take a deep breath before saying, "Whatever, let's just go find her now." He stood up, frowning at the mud covering him, before reaching down a hand to help Tashig up. If she paused to wipe at her eyes before grabbing his hand, then he didn't say anything about it.

"Yeah." She said before taking a deep breath and shouting in a voice that seemed too big for someone like her, "KITETSU!" her voice reverberated down the way, and Zoro shouted as well, and they waited before,

"Did you hear that?" Tashigi whipped around, already taking off in a direction. Zoro nodded and moved to follow when Tashigi doubled back and grabbed his arm. "We've made it this far and I'm not losing you out here." She snapped at him when he shot her a questioning look.

Zoro had to bite his tongue to hold in the retort just waiting there. He'd found her, hadn't he? Still, he nodded and the two of them set off, Tashigi in the lead and with a firm grip on Zoro.

They chased Kitetsu's far off barks between bouts of thunder until they didn't sound quite so far off anymore. "She's getting closer!" Tashigi shouted at one point before coming to a sudden stop. "Wait!" she shrieked, but Zoro couldn't stop fast enough and for a few moments he felt his foot fall through the air. For a sickening moment his stomach was up in his throat and he felt a 'swoop' in his gut.

"Whoa!" he shouted before he was yanked backwards, letting out a loud 'ooph!' when he landed on top of Tashigi. He was stunned for a few seconds as he tried to fight off his disorientation.

When Tashigi started shouting at him this time, he couldn't even complain. He rolled off of her and held his head.

Tashigi, meanwhile, stumbled to her feet and slowly moved forward to look at where the ground stopped. It was a steep outcropping and she took the flashlight from Zoro to see how deep it went. She swept the bright beam over the area a few times before pausing and then doubling back to grab Zoro. "She's down there!" Tashigi hissed at him. "I'm going down there." She declared before scrambling over the edge.

The words had barely even sunk in before Zoro was jolting up, his head spinning at the sudden movement. "What?" he hissed, willing his vision to stop blurring. It cleared just in time for him to see Tashigi disappear over the other side. "Wait!- Hey! Tashigi!" he shouted after her, but she paid him no mind and he hissed at her back. Climbing down there in the rain and dark? Of all the time to be stupid and stubborn!

But with no other choice, he followed after her, climbing down the ridge but noting that the mud made it hard to get a good grip on anything. Luckily, he got down safely and when he looked around he realized that Tashigi hadn't gone far. In fact, Kitetsu was over there as well.

He jogged over there, about to chew both of them out when he noticed what the two of them were staring at. When he drew up next to Tashigi he felt his own jaw drop.

"Who the hell are these people?" Tashigi's shaky voice surprised him, and it took Zoro a second to realize that there was no rain around here.

"The rain-" he said instead and Tashigi looked around as well, perhaps realizing it for the first time herself. She glanced behind herself and recoiled at the fact that it was actually still raining, but just like a curtain, there was a certain point where the rain simply stopped. It was amazing and terrifying and confusing.

Tashigi's hand covered her mouth as she whispered into her palm, "What the hell is going on here?" she said, looking between the weather and the group laying passed out.

Lying there were four teens and some sort of shaggy brown animal with… antlers?

Three were boys- one with messy black hair, another with curly hair, and finally a tall lanky blond- and the last was a girl with short red hair; all of them were soaked to the bone and there wasn't a single coat or jacket amongst them. Tashigi took a few cautious steps towards them and Zoro followed her lead, wondering who they should call in this case. Their phones were down and if any of these people needed serious medical attention then neither of them really knew where to go for it. The nearest hospital was a ways away, and it wasn't like they had a way to get them there; short of dumping them in the bed of a truck.

Slowly, Tashigi reached down to touch the neck of the red head. When she drew back her hand she nodded,

"There's still a pulse." She said, and Zoro checked the others just to confirm that they were all still alive. Wet and looking like drowned rats, yes, but also alive.

But, they looked at each other as they considered the facts, probably not for long. In this strange ass storm, who even knew how these people would fare.

"Where the fuck did these guys even come from?" he growled.

"Campers maybe?" Tashigi suggested. Although she had no idea where they were now, she did know that there were some campsites scattered around the area, but there didn't seem to be one near where they were. "Still, I can't imagine what it'd be like to just be in a tent in all of this."

An idea occurred to Zoro as she spoke, but he didn't like it. He didn't like it at all, and when he met Tashigi's gaze he could tell that she was thinking the same thing.

"If they stay out here then they'll get worse Zoro." She said quietly and he didn't respond. That was the humane choice, wasn't it? Letting a bunch of strangers into your home like this? But was it the smart one? It could have been a trap. These people could just be waiting for them to let their guards down before striking. But-

But he doesn't believe that. In his gut, he doesn't believe that taking them in would be bad. Besides, he's not a cocky man, but he's not cowardly either. While he wouldn't invite unnecessary trouble, he knew that he could handle them if they started anything.

He sighed and looked back at Tashigi, who'd probably made up her mind the moment that she saw them laying there.

That was another difference between the two of them. He wasn't nearly as…kind as she was, but he found himself nodding either way.

"Yeah, they will." He said before bending down to scoop up the one closest to him- the one with messy black hair. "But what are we going to do then?" they could take them back, but how? Tashigi was strong, but there were 4- err 5 of them if they included the deer, and she couldn't carry two of them at once.

She bit her lip as she thought it over as well.

But before they could reach any sort of consensus, they were both startled when one of the members of the group suddenly moved.

Tashigi stifled a shout and jumped back as one of them- the deer slowly raised itself onto unsteady legs and eyed the two of them, and it set Zoro's nerves on edge; however, what he got wasn't a dangerous feeling from the thing, but he definitely felt like he needed to take care. Whether it was a wild animal or a pet, they were still strangers to it.

The deer turned to him and watched him. It took a few seconds, but Zoro realized that instead the deer was staring at the person that he was holding instead.

Meanwhile Tashigi had both hands palm up in what was probably supposed to be a calming gesture as she slowly moving away from the red head and to his other side. She talked in a calm tone around the deer like it was a little kid, probably hoping that a calm tone would keep it from attacking. The thing had some pretty wicked looking horns, so Zoro couldn't exactly fault him.

"Zoro. Put. The. Boy. Down." She ordered in a quiet but sharp voice, still eying the animal. "This deer-" it stomped its foot and she jumped a little before slowly inching closer to him again. "-this deer looks like it might be _a little_ protective of him so put. Him. Down." She stressed again, glaring at him all the while.

But Zoro kept the stony look up on his face and said, "We're trying to help them out. I won't." he didn't know why he was being stubborn like this, but in this kind of situation he could only trust his gut, and his gut was telling him not to back down here.

But the creature didn't look happy about it. It snorted and tossed its head, looking more and more agitated.

Suddenly, like a bullet, Kitetsu darted over and planted herself firmly between them and started barking up at the deer. They were roughly the same size, but Tashigi still made a high pitched noise.

Zoro saw her frantically looking around, and he had no doubt that she was probably imagining the deer hurting her dog; being the type of person that she was, even if she had to fight it off with her bare hands, then he knew that she wouldn't let the deer hurt her dog. It was foolish but a bit admirable.

But it seemed like it wouldn't come back to that. Actually, once Kitetsu had started barking she hadn't stopped and she actually had the deer backing up a few paces. When she finally stopped, the deer looked from side to side, pawed at the ground, and made a few weak noises, but didn't do anything else aggressive.

"What the hell was that?" Zoro hissed and Tashigi shrugged, looking surprised herself.

"No idea." She whispered. She slowly started forward, eyes locked on the deer, towards the group of people. It watched her, but finally back away. She bent down next to the red head again. "But as long as it stops trying to attack us then I won't complain." She said, slipping an arm underneath the girl's shoulders and one underneath her legs. Showing strength that was a little usual for someone of her size, she stood up with the girl. "But I still have no idea about what to do with the others." She worried her lip.

Zoro shrugged. "I can get another one of them, but carrying three people at once is still too much." He said.

Slowly, he noticed the deer moving forward until he was nudging the blond man. It head-butted him a few times and looked at the two of them before doing it again. Zoro was totally lost, but after a few times Tashigi said quietly,

"Hey Zoro, try and pick that guy up."

"Why?"

"Just do it!" she hissed and he grumbled but complied; setting the first guy down before going over to this one. He lifted up about half of his body before the deer, showing a lot of maneuverability with those antlers, slipped under his torso, and stood again; supporting most of the man's weight.

Well, it was weird as hell, but solved their problem with the last guy. He nodded at the deer uncertainly, before going back to the black haired guy and the curly haired guy. Since he was carrying two of them, he slung one over each shoulder; grateful once again for how much he worked out since otherwise something like that would have seriously hurt his back. As it was, neither of them were too heavy.

He looked back at Tashigi. "All good?"

She snorted. "Right now this all feels like a bad dream, but yeah, I suppose that I am." She said, readjusting the girl in her arms. "Although I also wonder how we're going to get back."

Almost like she'd been summoned, Kitetsu came trotting up, looking pleased with herself. She barked a little, waggled her tail, and then set off into the rain, leaving her owners to play catch up again.

0o0o0

To say that they were exhausted when they got back was an understatement. Tashigi had stopped feeling her fingers a while ago, and Zoro had developed a deep ache on his shoulders that was only matched by the dark glare on his face. The only good thing was that the rain had stopped a while back, and some of the clouds had cleared, letting them see a little better. It was a longer trip back since they couldn't go back up the slope that they'd come down, and the two of them were sighing in relief when they finally got back. The two of them went through the back, and Tashigi said, "Let's lay them down in the living room. It'll be fine if we just push the table and couch to the side.

Zoro, not in the mood for words, nodded with a clenched jaw. They set the unconscious teens down before moving everything around. Immediately afterwards Tashigi left to get some towels and wash clothes. When Zoro turned around, he wasn't surprised to see the deer still watching him with the last man still slung across its back. But he was tired, so he just walked over to it, avoiding any common sense that would have him be wary about the animal otherwise and, and grabbed at the man's arm before picking him up and laying him down with the others. The floors were sopping wet so he had to be careful not to fall.

"Don't mess up the furniture." Was the only thing that he told the deer before walking over to the wall and sliding down. He closed his eyes and massaged his brow. What a fucking weird night. He half expected to wake up at any moment now, still on the couch with Tashigi saying something or another about a storm warning. But of course things weren't that easy and his aches and pains attested to the realness of the situation. So he just sat there with his eyes closed and focused on his breathing.

He could hear Tashigi moving back into the room. She didn't say a word as she cleaned and Zoro was glad for that at least. He had no idea if she'd recognized that he wasn't in the mood for idle chatter, or if she felt the same way, but he enjoyed the quiet.

The quiet stretched on for long enough that he felt the touches of sleep before she spoke again. "None of them seem hurt at least." Zoro grunted. Tashigi sighed and then added, "I'll check up on them again in the morning. If they're all better by then then I'll drive them into town." She said as stretched out on the couch herself.

Zoro listened to her shuffle about and sighed, feeling his own exhaustion weighing down on him. He could hear the click of Kitetsu's nails from somewhere in the room, and a few seconds later he could feel her laying her body along his legs. He knew that it'd be annoying to just let her stay like this, but he was too tired to ush her off. Actually, he felt strangely sluggish and instead he rapidly felt his consciousness slipping.

The last thing he heard was a second click of nails, and there there was just darkness.

0o0o0

Everything was fuzzy and Tashigi felt like she was burning up from the inside.

She felt something damp against her head, and the blankets over her itched at her hot skin. She was… in her bed?

She opened her eyes and blinked several times to get rid of the blurriness and then she reached over and grabbed her glasses off of the bedside table. She forced herself to sit up though, and was surprised to see a folded up hand towel fall into her lap. Since when had that been there? Or better yet, why was that there?

The last thing she remembered was falling asleep down on the couch. Had Zoro moved her? She made a face at the thought. It really didn't sound like something that he would have done, but she didn't know any other way that it could have happened.

Which meant that she must have gotten sick from being outside last night. She sighed at the though, but couldn't find it in her to regret it. Honestly, if she'd left them there then she just would have been up all night with worry anyways. At least now she had a clear conscious.

Still, her head was killing her and she tried to remember if there was any medication in the house. There was probably medicine down in the kitchen, and along the way she could check on their house guests.

She swung her feet over the edge of the bed before slowly getting up. Her limbs felt heavy, but she powered through it. God knew that Zoro would already be moody about having to carry her upstairs, nevermind if she walked around like she was dying. Besides, she told herself resolutely, she was tougher than a simple cold. She made it to her door, and had just opened it when she heard Zoro's loud shouts from the lower floors.

Immediately her mind kicked into overdrive. Zoro sounded angry and she rushed towards the stairs- careful not to go down too fast. "Zoro!" she called out, her throat burning from the simple yell. "What's going on?"

"Don't come down here!" Zoro shouted back at her, sounding angry, and Tashigi realized that she could hear more people moving about. She paused for another second, but another crash made up her mind. She flew down the stairs and rounded the corner to come into the living room.

She took one look around the room and screamed.

"What? What the hell is that!" she backed up too quickly and ended up slipping and falling. She banged up her elbow and butt but the pain didn't register. She could only stare at horror at the apparent monster standing in the living room.

It was tall- taller than Zoro even- and had a face that resembled a human's, sans the bright blue nose, but its whole upper half was covered in thick brown fur, and there was a ruff of even more fur around its neck.

It advanced towards her and she shrieked again. At the same time, the part of her that wasn't panicking took a second to register that it was speaking at her.

Her eyes took in Zoro on the other side of the room, looking like he was about to pass out himself. "It talks?!" she shouted, near hysterical.

"Apparently!" he shouted back at her.

The monster looked back at Zoro with something close to exasperation on its face. "I told you to lay down already! You're still sick!"

Zoro looked like he was considering going toe to toe with the thing. "Shut up Monster." He snarled. He didn't look well, but he looked mad. Seeing that expression on his face was enough to snap Tashigi out of her own confusion. Her hand clenched and her nails dug into her hand as she gathered her own resolve.

But the thing seemed to be taken about as well. "Don't call me a Monster!" It roared, and its voice was loud enough to shake the room.

Tashigi's hand itched for her sword, but turning her back on this thing seemed like a fool's move so she kept her eyes trained on it as she stood up. Truthfully her head still hurt and she felt like she would be sick, but she refused to let that keep her down. She met Zoro's gaze and realized that he also wouldn't back down.

The thing watched them warily, but before anyone could move, another person appeared.

Tashigi felt a shock go through her body and leave her knees weak, so she had to quickly hug to wall to keep from collapsing. Zoro had less luck and ended up falling to one knee. Meanwhile, an annoyed voice said,

"Honestly, can you two stop antagonizing our Doctor?"

Tashigi caught sight of the woman and her eyes widened. It was the same woman from last night, although she looked much healthier now. The woman glared at the two of them with cool eyes before turning her ire on the monster. "And you, Chopper!" she punched the thing in the head. "I told you to keep the two of them from moving!"

"I tried!" The thing- err, Chopper, whined, holding his head and glaring at the woman with slightly teary eyes. "Besides, you guys should have gotten back a while ago!"

She shrugged. "Luffy wanted to explore a little, so I had to send Usopp and Sanji off to make sure that he didn't get into trouble. Then I had to do more work by myself." She grumbled.

Which apparently explained a lot. Chopper sighed and his shoulders drooped. "That guy…" he muttered. The woman focused her attention back on the two of them. She stalked over towards Zoro, despite the glare that he was giving her, and told him in a tone that was detached and cold. "I won't do anything nasty to you since you helped up out of a jam last night, but," Tashigi gasped as this woman grabbed Zoro's face and at the fact that Zoro couldn't pull away from her. "if you call him a monster _one more time_ then I promise that I won't hold back." Compared to Zoro she looked small, but her voice carried enough promise to leave Tashigi nervous. "Ok?" the mystery woman said with a sudden smile. Zoro glared at her, and she quickly realized that that was the only response she'd get out of him. She shrugged and stood up before turning to Tashigi.

"And you!" she jabbed a finger at her. "You need to lay down. Actually _both of you_ need to until we can do something about those fevers. Then you can pitch as many fits as you want to." She huffed. Tashigi felt herself nodding at the woman's authority without meaning to. Seeing her easy compliance, she woman smiled and added. "Ok! But start acting up again though, and I'll shock you again." She warned. Again Tashigi nodded.

"What-" Tashigi shuddered, her voice coming out so quietly that even she hadn't quite realized that she'd said anything herself. "What are you?" Her eyes flickered over to the thing- err Chopper-, to include him as well.

The woman's threatening smile dropped and another sickly sweet one replaced it.

Then- Tashigi blinked a few times, sure that her eyes were playing tricks on her. Ears.

There were ears there. Although, not human ears. Definitely not human.

One of them swiveled towards her, and Tashigi watched with a sick sort of interest as they twitched back and forth. She heard a muted 'what the fuck?' from Zoro, and her eyes trailed lower to see something swishing around her waist. It was-

A tail?

Of course it was.

_Of course._

Tashigi sank down to the ground and watched the tail make lazy figure eights behind the woman. Bushy and orange, it matched her hair, with the exception of the white tip.

"So," The woman said, staring down at her with eyes that were now a glowing shade of amber. Slit pupils narrowed at her, and the woman gave her a smile with too many too sharp teeth.

"What do _you_ think I am?"

* * *

><p>tbh, I'm really excited to write Zoro and Tashigi meeting the rest of the gangs (because if these two were freaking out about Chopper and Nami then oohhh man-)<p>

that being said, I'll try and update as soon as possible!

Until then~


	3. When Fairy Tales are Real

So I have some good news at least. From here on out, expect updates on Thursdays!

Because, while I don't really like forcing deadlines on myself, they _are_ the best ways to make sure that I stick to my projects. So yeah, every Thursday~

That being said, I noticed a copy cat of my fic on here, and I have to be frank- I'm pretty fucking pissed off about it.

It's lazy as shit to literally take so much of a person's story and only change a few details and then call it your own (like usually when people say that they got an idea from another fic, they don't mean that they actually took the first 2 chapters of another fic but whatever), but you know what? If someone's not creative enough to come up with ideas on their own, or to not copy 90% of the stuff in their fics from someone else's, then that's not my problem. My only concern from here is to just going to focus on making this story as fan-fucking-tastic as possible.

But that's enough of that crap.

On with chapter 3! No new warnings here (except for maybe my language)

* * *

><p>"Do you think-" Zoro glanced up when he heard Tashigi speak softly and slowly. "Do you think that it's possible to go crazy over the course of a night?"<p>

Zoro snorted. "Define 'crazy'." He said, only to receive a look that could have soured milk. Tashigi wrapped her arms even tighter around her legs, which made her look even younger than usual. Her red rimmed glassed were perched neatly on top of her head.

"Honestly, it feels like some sort of bad dream." She whispered, as if she were telling him a secret. "Although with you here," She sighed, her mouth twisting up a little into a bit of a wry smile. "It feels a little more like a nightmare."

"Shut up." He snorted and cuffed her on the head a little; although truth be told, he was happy to see some sort of emotion from her. After being shown that fox woman's true form earlier, she'd become quiet and unresponsive. It was obvious that she was still trying her hardest to convince herself that her eyes had somehow fooled her; and he couldn't hold that against her because a part of him wanted to do the same. To convince himself that the sounds of someone in their kitchen were just a part of a strange dream and that he'd been waking up soon- or that it was all the result of him not taking his medication properly- but it was impossible.

The fear he'd felt upon waking up and finding that monster hovering over him, and the pain that he'd felt from a brief struggle with it were more than enough to convince him of the validity of the situation. He wasn't a person who was big on lying to himself to begin with, so it felt like all he could do was accept it.

The two of them lapsed back into silence and watched the muted tv. Some early afternoon soap opera was playing, but neither of them could really focus on it. While Tashigi was struggling to come to terms with all of it, Zoro thought about what the hell they'd do next.

It was obvious that this wasn't the type of situation that they could get outside help on. For one, there was nobody that the two of them really trusted out here, and two, nobody who would believe such a situation; and who could blame them? They had a fucking Sasquatch and a fox woman in their kitchen! Things that weren't supposed to be real outside of kid's fairy tales, and things that definitely, definitely, weren't supposed to eat your food and threaten you in your own home!

Although, it wasn't as if these creatures had done anything to try and harm them…yet. The fox woman, for all of her aggressive behavior, had promptly left after threatening them. At the moment, he had no idea where she was, or what she was up to, and that made him nervous.

Meanwhile her companion, despite his physical appearance, hadn't tried to harm them either. Quite the opposite actually. After the fox woman had shown up with some strange looking plants, he'd started pulling his own ingredients out of a little backpack and made up a bad tasting and smelling, but surprisingly effective tea-like brew for them to drink. Because of it, the fever and headache that he'd had just a few hours earlier were like distant memories.

After giving them the mixture and then booting them out of the kitchen, the monster had also, thankfully, left them alone.

So while Zoro didn't trust either of them, of the two of them he definitely preferred the overgrown animal.

There was the shuffle of feet and Zoro felt eyes on him. When he turned around, he saw the monster peeking out from around the kitchen doorway- if it could have even been called peeking.

He was standing with most of his body out in the open and half of his face hidden by the doorway; almost as if he was pushing against the doorway.

"Are you two feeling any better?" he asked in a voice that seemed too high for something of that size.

Both Zoro and Tashigi watched the thing with distrustful eyes. While he was being non-aggressive now, it still felt unwise to leave their guard down. The monster picked up on their hostility and sighed before he stopped pushing against the doorway. "You two don't have to look so nervous." He said, before slowly approaching them. "I'm not going to do anything to you. I'm a doctor after all. It would go against everything I stood for." He said then stopped as his eyes lit up a little and an idea came to him. "But if my form if really bothering you, then I can change that."

Zoro raised an eyebrow at the thing, not really getting what he was talking about.

He watched as the thing made a face and followed up with an odd 'whoosh' sound, and suddenly neither of them could see it anymore.

"Whoa!" Tashigi hissed as the two of them jumped up. "Where did he go? Did he disappear?" She sounded nervous at the idea, and Zoro couldn't help but agree. If that thing could walk around without being seen, then that wouldn't be good at all.

"I'm not invisible!" a much higher pitched voice squeaked from behind the couch.

Zoro slowly moved closer to the couch and took a look behind it- only to recoil once more.

"The fuck?!" he hissed. "Is that some sort of raccoon?"

"I'M A REINDEER!" the thing shouted as the thing circled the couch and came into view. He looked up at them with ridiculously large eyes and a large head that seemed almost…cute on the smaller body. With that huge pink hat on his head he looked like a stuffed animal.

Or a tanuki.

"And call me Doctor Chopper, please." Chopper continued, ignoring their shocked expressions. "And you shouldn't look so surprised- that sort of thing isn't unusual where I'm from." They continued to stare wide eyed at him and he sighed. "Anyways, I figured that I'd be less intimidating if I looked like this, so let me take your temperatures, ok?"

There was a few seconds of silence before Zoro looked at Tashigi, who looked like she could have been a statue at the moment, and sighed. "Fine." He muttered; annoyed that he did feel less on edge when the thing- Chopper, looked like this.

He crouched down to get it over with and the little doctor pressed a hoof against his forehead. Chopper made a happy noise before proclaiming, "Much better!" he looked at Tashigi with expectant eyes, and slowly she followed Zoro's lead. She flinched a little when Chopper touched her too, but let out a sigh when he proclaimed that she was much better as well.

"You always have to be careful with Magic-related illnesses." Chopper told the two of them. "Although since the rain from last night wasn't pure Magic so much as Magic_ tinted_, it didn't do much more than cause a little fever."

"Then why weren't you guys sick?" Zoro was surprised to hear Tashigi speak, and Chopper might have been too, but he answered her question happily.

"Well we were less affected by it because compared to the amount of magic that we're exposed to in our world on a daily basis, that much magic is like a bug bite. Although it seemed that even low amounts of magic are often bothersome for humans and creatures not constantly exposed to it." Tashigi nodded a little, but Zoro was a little surprised at how Chopper talked. For a… whatever he was, he certainly seemed smart.

"Well thank you then… Doctor Chopper." Tashigi said with a small grimace that might have been an attempt at a smile before settling back down on the couch. "I really do feel better now." Zoro muttered something similar before joining her. To their surprise, Chopper started to wriggle around and sway from side to side.

"Shut up!" he shouted, but with a smile on his face. "I don't need to be thanked by you!" despite the harsh words, he seemed happy, so neither of them knew quite what to think.

Chopper was quickly pulled out of his dancing by Nami shouting his name. She appeared from around the hall dressed in an outfit that was strangely familiar.

"Hey!" Tashigi hissed, jumping up again. "That's my shirt! And my shorts- take them off!" she pointed a finger at the woman like she would have Kitetsu and Nami shot her a bored look.

"Oh calm down." She said, waving a hand. "I'm not keeping the outfit, so just let me wear it for a while. Besides," she plucked at the flower print. "It's not really my style anyways so you don't have to worry about me stealing it."

Whether it was from the fact that Nami was unapologetically wearing her clothing, or the casual distaste for the stolen outfit, either way, Tashigi was steamed.

But she was also not an idiot.

While she may have been tempted to keep on arguing, she still remembered the strange shock that the woman had given her earlier, and was in no hurry to repeat the experience. So she sat back down an angry huff.

Nami gave her a teasing smirk before turning back to Chopper. "It's so quiet here that I'm assuming that the others aren't back yet?"

"Nope." Chopper sighed. "Then again, I hadn't heard anything unusual and I haven't smelled any smoke yet, so I assume that they're staying out of the way."

Nami laughed. "With those guys though, anytime that they're not causing trouble is a miracle."

Zoro cocked an eyebrow. "Those guys?" he muttered, more to himself than anyone else, but Chopper responded.

"Yeah, our other friends."

"Speaking of which," Tashigi muttered looking around herself, "I guess there were three more of you guys." She paused. "Are they all- you know?" she gestured at the two of them.

"More or less." Nami said with a shrug. "None of us are human, but neither are we all the same species." She pointed at Chopper. "He's a reindeer with a cursed ability," Chopper nodded, "And I'm a Kitsune." She gestured to herself; flashing her amber eyes once more.

Zoro tried to remember everything he could remember about the kitsune's from his master's old stories. Quite a few of them had involved the foxes, considering Koshiro's love for Japanese folklore, but all he could remember was that they were tricksters who largely fooled people by disguising themselves as beautiful women. But, if he recalled correctly, that wasn't the only form that they could take. There were a few tales of them disguising themselves as old men as well. He idly wondered which form was the fox's truer one.

It took him a few seconds to realize that he might have vocalized that last thought when he was suddenly on the receiving end of a glare from said fox.

"This_ is_ my true form." She huffed, tapping against her chest. "Jeez," she brushed a few stray hairs out of her face. "Don't you know that that kind of thing is rude though? You don't ask about a shifter's true form."

Zoro snorted at the etiquette lesson. Even if he had cared about possibly offending creatures like them, he would have asked the same thing. After all, a creature that could change its shape? He doubted that he could ever really trust something like that.

Tashigi, meanwhile had a different question. "Cursed ability? What exactly is that?" she slipped her glasses down her face, as if being able to see Chopper more clearly would also reveal the answers to her question.

Chopper didn't seem to mind the close scrutiny though. Compared to the hostility from the morning, their curiosity was like a breath of fresh air. "It means that I've eaten a cursed fruit." He said, launching into 'Doctor Mode' all over again. "Where we're from, there are several trees that grow strange fruit. All of them are full of such unusual and dark Magics that they're referred to as Devil Fruits." He said. In the back of her mind, Tashigi had to take a few seconds to ponder over the fact that they apparently had a Devil, or knowledge of the human's Devil back wherever Chopper had come from. "Our own Magics can't compare to them, and they can give the first person to eat one incredible abilities." With another strange 'whoosh' Chopper shifted and suddenly he was a full sized reindeer again. Another second and he was in his Sasquatch-looking form. "I ate the Human- Human fruit, and now I can turn into a human." He scratched at his cheek and observed his own furry form before glancing at theirs. "Well, mostly."

"That's…amazing actually." Tashigi said, taking a few seconds to ingest the information. For how strange the situation was, her curiosity was still piqued. As much as she still couldn't quite believe that it was happening to her, it felt like being in the middle of a story or fairy tale. Before she realized what she was doing, she reached out and ran a hand along the fur of his arm.

She immediately stilled when she realized that not only had she just reached out and grabbed something that she's tried to convinced herself didn't exist earlier, but that she hadn't even asked permission first. She blushed and pulled away.

"That was rude of me." She said quickly. "Sorry."

Zoro snorted. "It sure was. Man, one minute you're losing it and the next you're treating the guy like he's Kite." He said in an annoying and drawn out voice.

She puffed out her cheeks at him. "Just be quiet already Zoro." She suddenly paused. "Actually speaking of Kite- where is she?"

Now the fact that she hadn't heard her barks at all this morning wasn't actually that strange. Kitestu was an outside dog and wandered as she pleased- especially since she was so large that they didn't have to worry about animals trying to attack her- but now, with this strange situation, her absence was worrying.

Before she could stress about it however, Nami piped up with, "Your dog right? She followed us this morning for some time and then wandered off into the forest." She shrugged. "I assume that she does that often?"

"Yeah," Tashigi smiled a cute little smile that seemed to be reserved for Kitetsu only. "Keeping her in one place for too long is a lot more trouble than it's worth, so I don't even try anymore."

As Zoro watched the smile on Tashigi's face bloom, he realized how quickly the tension seemed to be leaking out of the room. Now, instead of stifling nerves and tension so thick that he could have cut it, there was a much more relaxed feeling. He almost felt bad for breaking the mood when he asked, "Well what are you guys planning to do now? If you're well enough to be moving around, then aren't you going to go?"

And while he'd often been told in the past that he lacked any sort of tact, even he realized that he probably could have made the words sound a little less hostile.

Nami and Chopper shared a long look and seemed to convey a whole conversation through their facial expressions alone. Finally Nami answered him.

"The short answer is yes, and the long one is maybe." Nami sighed. "Since we're thankful for your help last night, we'll try not to impose too much; although as thanks, we'll at least make you dinner tonight- no buts." She said with a smile. "Sanji's a great cook. You'll love his food.

"But since we're _supposed_ to be here sight-seeing, we'd probably leave after that." She shot them a wry grin. "Sorry, but it doesn't seem like there's really anything interesting to do around here."

Tashigi found herself smiling back. "Not really no. Unless you like nosy neighbors and hiking."

"So that's the yes then?" Zoro asked. "Well what about the maybe?"

Another glance between Chopper and Nami.

"Well," Nami sighed. "Let's just say that our leader is a little stubborn. Actually very stubborn."

"And very unpredictable." Chopper added.

"Right. So while the plan was to come to the human world to explore for a while, we're really only going where he wants to." She said with her hands raised palm up in a 'what can you go about it?' gesture. "Knowing him, he might just decide that he liked it here, and if he did then we couldn't really go against him." She said, then quickly backtracked. "Actually no. We could punch him a few times and he'd mope for a little while, but this is his trip, so the idea is to actually let him be in charge for a while."

"Then," Zoro said dryly, "He would just take over our house because he felt like it?"

"Of course not!" Nami said with an easy wave. "Luffy's selfish, but even we can't let him be _that_ selfish. If he wants to stay here- unlikely- then just tell him no and slam the door in his face. Just don't get caught up in his pace and you'll be fine." The way she said it made it seem like it wouldn't be an easy task.

Zoro huffed but didn't respond.

"Actually," Tashigi piped up, "I was wondering too, why tell us all of this?" she asked, now curious instead of suspicious. "Wouldn't just leaving after the rain had stopped been easier than this whole 'we're not human' conversation?"

Nami shrugged. "Are you going to tell anyone?"

"I think I'd be locked up if I tried." Tashigi admitted.

"Then that's why." Nami tapped the side of her nose. "Plus, it would be rude to just leave without so much as a thanks."

"But electrocuting the people who helped you isn't rude." Tashigi said with a dry smile, surprised by the lack of an accusation in her own tone. Compared to the Nami that she was talking to now, the woman from this morning seemed like a completely different person.

"Not if they're giving my friend a hard time." Nami said with a cheeky grin before tweaking Chopper's nose.

"Stop." He mumbled, brushing her hand away. "Besides, these guys aren't as much of a handful as Luffy or Sanji always are." Chopper let out a long suffering groan.

"Bad patients?" Tashigi asked.

"The worst." Nami interjected with a sigh. "I swear, we need to tie them down to the bed every time they get hurt. Luffy's especially bad."

"Is he really?" Tashigi said, cocking an eyebrow. "You should have tried growing up with this guy-" she jabbed her thumb at Zoro. "I swear, he was the worst. One time he broke his ankle, and refused to keep off of it because," she furrowed her eyebrows and made a face like she was having stomach pains. "'If I rest then I won't get any stronger'. Pfft." She snorted at him. "He nearly made it so that he couldn't even walk right anymore."

"Hah! If you think that that's bad then-" Nami started to counter, and Zoro stood up to get away from the tedious conversation. Nami immediately dropped down into his vacated spot.

He walked into the kitchen and looked out of the sliding glass door. It was clear outside and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to just get out there. "Hey Tashigi! I'm heading out." He called before opening the door.

"Yeah yeah, just don't get lost." She shouted back, and he rolled his eyes before heading outside. To be honest he hardly called it 'getting lost' since he always got where he wanted to in the end.

Once a good distance away from the house, he tipped his head back and let the sun fall on his face. His chest expanded as he took in a few lungfuls of air. Already he could feel tension rolling off of his body. He immediately felt lighter as he started walking.

He didn't go with a destination in mind, and in fact he tried his best to clear his mind of everything as he walked. No worrying about his current situations, or about how odd everything was. He just focused on the feel of the uneven ground beneath his feet and the peeks of sunlight that came through the canopies of the trees. Even the air around him was peaceful and everything seemed to be dyed with a hue of green. The sounds of birds and trees ruffling blended into a nice white noise as he walked.

He went up some hills, and down some more and crossed over a few well-worn hiking trails. Sooner or later more people might come out here to walk them- usually city folks who de-stressed on the weekends by being surrounded by nature.

He didn't mind them so much so long as he didn't have to run into any of them and they stayed away from the property. As it was, he liked walking alone, with no one to distract him.

He was crossing near a stream when something prickled on the edges of his awareness. He glanced up and around into the trees while trying to get a better pin on the feeling. It wasn't intrusive enough to spoil his good mood, although it was similar to the feeling of being watched.

After a few seconds of looking around and waiting, he chalked the feeling off to being a deer or other animal. Within minutes the feeling had faded and he was back on his way to relaxing. But inevitably, the feeling came back again in waves, and he wasn't so quick to brush it off. He walked for a while longer, careful to not give off the impression that he knew that he was being watched.

Instead he tried to get a reading on the person following him. For one, they at least weren't malicious. He'd felt his share of bad auras and intentions before, but this one didn't raise his hackles so much as just keep him on his guard.

But it was also strange. While he had the feeling that they were there, he didn't actually hear anything. Actually. He didn't hear much at all. Even the sounds of birds chirping had faded to such a low level that he wondered if there were even any in the area. Besides that, there was no snap of branches or even the same rustle of leaves that he made as he passed through the area.

So not a human then. He dealt with the idea rather easily. After all, Nami and Chopper had three more friends, so it wasn't too far-fetched that one of them had gotten curious and had started to follow him.

So long as they didn't try anything then he didn't care so much, but he made a mental note to walk with his swords next time.

They followed him for a while longer before he finally decided that it was time to stop.

"Ok." He said, talking to no one at all. "I'm done with this now. Which one of you is this?" There was no response, save for the rustling of wind through the trees, but the impression of being followed increased. "You _are_ with the Fox woman and the doctor, right?"

Suddenly he heard a rustle to his left, but he didn't move. "I'll take that as a yes." He said instead. "Anyways, I don't mind if you follow me. Just don't do anything strange."

"Got it!"

He whipped around at the voice that was suddenly behind him; shocked that they had gotten so close to him. When he saw nothing, he turned back around and then fell back with a shout. He landed hard on his ass and looked up to glare at the person in front of him who was now doubled over in laughter.

"Shishishi- you really are interesting!" the guy laughed, although Zoro wasn't sure if he should have considered it a compliment or not. "You were so calm about everything for so long that I didn't think I'd get a reaction outta ya!" The teen straightened up and seemed incredibly nonchalant about the death glare that he was currently receiving.

Although it made sense considering that the guy clearly wasn't human. Like, the Nami, he resembled a human for the most part. Just by looking at him in his vest and cut-off jeans, Zoro would have guessed that he was somewhere in his younger teens. Save for the curly ram horns poking through his thick black hair and the too sharp teeth that showed when he smiled; even his finger and toe nails were too long and sharp to be a human's.

A movement caught his eye and Zoro glanced down to see a whip like tail with a spade at the end whipping back and forth behind the teen.

Before Zoro could think to stand up by himself, the guy was grabbing his arm and dragging him to his feet; he was surprisingly careful not to scrape him with his claws. "Yeah well, don't try any 'surprises' like that again anytime soon." Zoro rumbled and jerked his arm back, still glaring.

The teen rocked back on his heels. "Sure." He said in a chipper tone that told Zoro that there was no way he'd actually behave. Zoro sighed. While the other two had had manageable personalities, this guy was obviously much more of a handful. It didn't take a genius to guess who he must have been.

"Let me guess," Zoro sighed. "You're Luffy, aren't you?"

The teen looked a little surprised but smiled a wide smile nonetheless. "Yup! I'm Monkey D Luffy. Nice to meet ya!"

* * *

><p>Ok, so Luffy next chapter then! Just a warning though- canon Luffy is annoying little shit if you're not one of his friends (and even when you are), so he's gonna be annoying for a while. It's definitely not an instant attraction thing here.<p>

But in the next chapter!: Zoro discovers that Luffy's a lot more than just 'a handful' and finally, finally we'll drop in on Usopp and Sanji~!

So see ya next Thursday!

Anyways, thanks for reading everyone, and I'll see ya next week~


	4. Ruffled Feathers

So just a heads up, I'm trying to avoid using honorifics in this fic mostly because most of the characters that do use them usually just use 'san' which is pretty easy to translate to English. That being said, I'm going to keep Sanji's 'swans' and 'chwans' and any characters that use 'chan' in here anyways, since it's just easier to leave as is.

same warnings as for the rest of the fic apply here. Unbeta'd as always, so I might post a few edits here later.

But yeah- here's where everyone's favorite liar and curly cook are introduced, so enjoy~

* * *

><p>It took Zoro less than a minute around Luffy to realizes that he should have taken Nami's warning more seriously.<p>

_Much_ more seriously.

It also took him less than a minute to realize how wrong he'd been to label Luffy as a 'handful'. As it turned out, 'handful' was much too light of a term. The boy was like a goddamn typhoon.

From the get go, Luffy was in his personal space, poking and prodding him like he was a dog and hovering around him like a goddamn helicopter; literally, by the way. At one point Zoro had glanced down to see that there was actually a good deal of distance between the guy's worn scandals and the ground. Which explained why Zoro hadn't heard him following him.

But not actually how he hadn't _heard_ the guy, since Luffy literally had not stopped talking in the past few minutes. Zoro, who was used to averaging a nice 30 words per week, was drowning under a flood of questions asked too quickly for him to respond to (like "Is your hair really that color?" "I heard that humans eat a lot of weird stuff, is that true?" and even "Do you guys poop?"), and stories about things that he had never even heard about (like 'Skypieans', what the hell were those?).

Luffy gestured as he spoke, with his arms in wide circles, Zoro could just feel all of the tension that had previously left coming back; winding him up tighter and tighter. It felt like he's snap at any second; and if Luffy noticed the adverse effect that his actions had on him, then he ignored it.

But even Luffy couldn't ignore when Zoro's hand suddenly lashed out and grabbed him by the lower face. With a firm grip on his cheekbones, Zoro dragged Luffy's face closer to him.

"Shut up." He growled in the tone usually reserved for Kite, feeling his blood pressure rising. "Just stop talking for an entire minute. Can you actually do that?"

Luffy stared back at him with wide eyes before he gave a muffled, "Yesh."

"Fine." Zoro released him. As soon as he let go, Luffy leaned back and put a little distance between them and just looked at him. Like, _really_ looked at him.

Luffy's blue gaze was like being trapped underneath a microscope, while the rest of his rather blank expression gave off no impression of his thoughts. Belatedly, Zoro realized that he probably shouldn't have done what he did.

For one he had no idea what exactly he was dealing with. While Nami and Chopper had said that they were a peaceful bunch, Nami had still electrocuted him with her weird ability without a second thought, while Chopper had easily overpowered him when he'd first woken up.

Plus with all of their talk about Luffy being unpredictable and hard to control, there was really no guarantee that Luffy wouldn't lash out at him. God knew that Zoro had been attacked for less.

Now, feeling extra foolish for not bringing his swords with him, Zoro met Luffy's gaze head on. If nothing else, he wouldn't take his eyes off of the guy. What couldn't have been more than half a minute passed in this way, but Luffy still didn't talk, and the tension felt suffocating.

Finally, like the sun breaking through some storm clouds, Luffy smiled again. "You're pretty funny!" he declared before laughing. The weird atmosphere around them dissipated, but Zoro still watched the teen warily. Just because he was smiling and laughing didn't make him less of a threat- probably the opposite.

"Man," Luffy laced his hands behind his head and dropped a few inches so that he was standing on the ground again. "It's been a while since I was scolded by someone other than Nami or Ace or Sabo." He rubbed at his nose. "Sorry." Mixed with his cheeky smile, the gesture seemed pretty damn insincere, but Zoro's gut feeling told him that it was about as good as he'd get with Luffy.

"Whatever." Zoro sighed and turned on his heel. "Just stop talking so much. And stay out of my space. You guys know what personal space is at least, right?" There was no response from Luffy, but Zoro heard him start walking, and all he could really focus on was that it was odd to hear the flat slap of his scandals on the ground. When Zoro looked back to check on him, he found that Luffy was still staring at him, but there was another thing off about him this time.

"Your eyes," he started. "They're brown now." He wasn't a very observant guy, but even he couldn't miss the sharp color change. Luffy shrugged.

"They do that." He said without any elaboration an Zoro didn't ask. From there the two of them fell into a silence and Zoro sighed again.

"You don't have to actually stop talking." as soon as he said it, Luffy's face lit right up, but Zoro cut him off with a quick, "But talk at a _human_ speed."

* * *

><p>An hour later and it would have been wrong to say that Zoro regretted his walk now.<p>

He regretted the walk 20 minutes in when he'd first run into the leader of the merry demonic bunch. And after 20 minutes of being talked at by a curious demon (Luffy had identified himself as such during one of his long tangents), Zoro was torn between tearing his own ears off and strangling the demon floating casually beside him. Zoro had talked more in the last half an hour than he'd talked in the past month and now he 'knew' everything about the chipper teen demon from how many brothers he had (two older ones; Ace and Sabo), to his favorite foods (literally just meat).

Anyone else might have tried to return home by now, but Zoro had his reasons as for why he didn't turn back himself. And none of them dealing with not knowing the right way back. Nope. None at all.

Still this was _before _he had met Luffy's other friends.

Now Usopp wasn't too bad. Skittish as hell, and a bit odd, but nowhere near Luffy's level, or that of the blond feathered ass. The guy was a satyr and the only one who actually seemed to be nervous around him. Poking out from underneath a yellow/green bandana had been a pair of floppy ears and small horns poked through his bandana; a pair of goggles sat perched on top of his head. Sticking out of the bottom of his overalls were a shaggy pair of goat legs, hooves included, and while he hadn't meant to look, he'd also noticed a short poof of a tail sticking out of the back of those overalls.

Unlike when Luffy had trailed him, he'd heard this guy crashing through the underbrush from a mile away, just shouting Luffy's name. When the pair had finally run into him, Usopp had come at them brandishing a clear container with something buzzing around angrily inside it.

For the first time in nearly half an hour, Zoro hadn't had Luffy glued to his side as the demon had rushed forward to check the contents of the container, both of he and Usopp now shouting about how cool it was. It had taken him a few seconds to see what exactly 'it' was through Luffy's arms, but when he saw was it was, he had been less than impressed.

"A beetle?" he'd grunted, only for Luffy to spin around and look at him like he'd insulted his mother. Usopp, on the other hand, had given him a pitying look.

"Now, now Luffy, not everyone can understand the majesty of the Hercules Beetle." The satyr had shrugged in a 'can't be helped' gesture, while Luffy had actually booed him. "You can't expect a human to-"

His words died off slightly as he seemed to take in Zoro for the first time, and he'd shifted around until he'd put Luffy between the two of them. "…understand." He had finished, no longer sounding quite so cocky. Actually, it had seemed like the opposite, and Zoro had shot him a strange look, only to realize that for the first time one of Luffy's bizarre group had actually been…nervous around him. Compared to the fox's casualness and Chopper's doctorly care, seeing one of them actually being wary around humans was strange; although he couldn't tell if in a good way or not.

"Why is he acting like that?" He'd asked Luffy, who'd just shrugged and continued to poke at the container's clear plastic.

"Usopp's scared of humans, or something." Luffy had said in an offhanded way, as if he hadn't been very concerned about Usopp's condition. Which, from Zoro's brief but thorough exposure to him, had seemed pretty likely.

"So he took a trip to the human world- populated almost entirely by humans. Smart." Zoro had replied in his most deadpanned voice.

"Sh-shut up!" Usopp, shaking a little now, had shouted from his spot behind Luffy. "A brave warrior like me isn't afraid of humans!" he'd puffed out his chest. "I've fought over 8000 of them so don't get cocky now human!" he'd shouted, only to flinch the moment that Zoro had glared in his direction. Some brave warrior.

So yeah, Usopp had been a character.

But Sanji was just an ass.

A big bird feathered ass that smelled like cheap smokes and wore an even cheaper suit.

Admittedly it was hard to even say where a lot of his hatred of the man had even come from (and no that was not too strong a word to use on a person he'd just met- trust him), but the feeling that he got around himm was similar to being punched in the stomach, repeatedly (an experience that he was also familiar with).

Now Zoro wasn't a religious man in the slightest, and didn't take Christianity with more than a grain of salt, but even he was sure that angels weren't supposed to be such dicks.

Usopp had been the one to lead them to the blond after he and Luffy had finished geeking out over the bug that Usopp had caught. They'd walked for some ways, Usopp again trying his best to avoid getting too close to Zoro, and Zoro trying his best to tune out some of Luffy's ramblings; although Usopp being there helped since now Luffy had someone to talk to who'd actually understand his inane chatter.

"Hey Sanji!" Usopp had called out after a while, right before they'd entered a clearing. "I found Luffy, and it doesn't look like he got into any trouble."

Sanji, who'd been examining some fungi on the ground, had stood up from his crouch before turning to them. "Well thank the heavens for small miracles." He'd replied in a dry voice, distorted just slightly by the cigarette hanging from his lips. "I'd hate for that ass to get me into trouble with Nami-swan." When he stood all his full height, he was probably as tall as Zoro was, although his long legs made him look even taller. This guy also looked almost completely human, save for the giant wings growing out his back. The color of them was hard to describe if only because there were only so many words that Zoro knew for 'white'. Tashigi probably could have rattled off a few colors that all basically meant the same thing, but just white was good enough for him. As it was, they were folded tightly against his back, just barely above the ground.

Sanji had ignored Luffy's pout at the mention of him stirring up trouble and ended up looking at Zoro instead. A strange feeling had bubbled up inside of him from the moment that their eyes had met, but it had been sealed the moment that Sanji had opened up his mouth and said, "Moss Head huh?"

Now Zoro had been teased and poked at for his hair before, and he'd learned quickly in the past that even more than just ignoring the people who bothered him, kicking the shit out of them also lessened the teasing. So he couldn't have helped his instant reply, "Well at least I don't have a dart board on my forehead." Because lo and behold, although the blond's hair fell over one half of his face, Zoro could still see the man's oddly shaped eyebrow from where he was.

And, not even exaggerating, Zoro could have heard a pin drop in the ensuing silence. Luffy and Usopp had glanced between the two of them, Usopp frozen in horror and Luffy in surprise, but the silence had been broken by Luffy finally losing it and starting to giggle. "Dart board?"

Usopp had made a choking noise at Luffy's comment, while simultaneously trying to back away.

After that, there honestly wasn't much to say other that less than a minute after meeting each other he and Sanji had literally ended up at each other's throats with Usopp and Luffy sandwiched in between them.

Usopp, at least, had been trying to stop the fighting, but Luffy had been laughing too hard to do much more than keep Sanji from accidentally, or intentionally, hurting Zoro. Instead Sanji had snarled insults at him with his wings puffed up and out, looking like, in Zoro's opinion, a giant chicken.

Which he might have verbalized during their argument.

Although afterward he'd had to apologize for the last remark, if only to make it up to Usopp for having been kicked in the ribs by Sanji in his ensuing rage. It had only been after that that Luffy had put down his foot and made the executive decision for them to all go back to Zoro's house, with Zoro being too pissed off at Sanji to be mad at being ordered around by Luffy like he was one of his lackeys.

So now, an hour after he had first left, Zoro was slowly walking back home in a mood that was several times darker than it had been when he'd left. Usopp, more or less recovered from the brutal kick, was scolding Sanji, who seemed to be ignoring him, and Luffy was back to talking at Zoro at 100 words per minute.

When they'd finally made it back to the house- though with little to no help on Zoro's end ("How the fuck do you not know where you live- dumbass!" Sanji snarled)- Zoro felt like he could have been excused for slamming the door a little.

"I'm back." He snapped, more out of habit than anything. Almost immediately he could hear Kite barking up a storm in the living room. Since they'd come in through the kitchen, there was no one in there, and the rest of Luffy's group just waltzed in after him; although Sanji shrunk his wings before entering and Usopp's hooves shifted into much more human feet.

Sanji was immediately critical of the state of the kitchen. "Tch." He snorted as he started rummaging around through the cabinets like he owned the place. "This place is so poorly stocked. Although I wouldn't have expected anything less from you." He snapped at Zoro in a pissy little voice.

"Actually," Tashigi's voice came from the entrance to the kitchen. Zoro looked up to see her standing there, taking in the rest of their guests with a blank expression. "Zoro and I do the grocery shopping together. Although it is a little bare, isn't it?" she sounded a little snarky at the end, which did a little bit to lighten Zoro's mood; there was something satisfying about knowing that he wasn't the only on who had a problem with the prick.

What happened next, however, Zoro might not have believed if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.

Sanji did the quickest 180 that Zoro had even seen, and went from foul mouthed ass to love struck fool in a second. Like a whirlwind he swept through the kitchen and ended up in front of Tashigi on one knee. She didn't seem to know what to do when he grabbed her hand and looked up at her with what he probably imagined was a sultry look.

"How rude of me!" he said quickly and in an almost bashful tone, "I spoke too quickly Madam." He seemed to turn up the cheese factor even more. "I would never want to insult such a beautiful woman, such as yourself." Tashigi's expression at the moment was an interesting mix of confusion and distaste. It seemed like she was just as lost about how to handle Sanji's mood swing.

"But you're ok with insulting me?" Zoro snorted, only to get a dark glare from the blond. Next to him Usopp shook his head with a weary sigh.

"Just ignore him. He gets like that around all of the pretty girls." Usopp muttered, sounding annoyed.

Sanji ignored Usopp's comment, and continued whatever he was doing to Tashigi. "I'm sorry about that. It must be so hard living with a man like that, unless you two-" he paused, sounding almost downtrodden, and Tashigi grimaced before shaking her head. She also took the opportunity to take her hand out of Sanji's clasped ones.

"No." she used the same 'just barely there' smile that she used whenever someone from town inquired about their relationship. "We're not like that. He's like a brother to me." Sanji immediately perked up at the news- only to be shot down immediately by Nami.

"Down boy." She sighed when she came up from behind Tashigi. She looked less than impressed when he started to fawn over her too. "Yeah yeah I know." She sighed. "Just tell me that you four didn't get into any trouble."

Wait, four? Zoro frowned at the thought of her lumping him in with the rest of them.

Sanji, unsurprisingly, was first to answer. "Of course Nami-Swan! I made sure to keep everyone in line~!" he sang as he spun for her. Tashigi watched him now with just plain confusion written on her face and she seemed to rely solely on Nami's reactions to figure out how to respond to him.

At the same time, Usopp and Zoro let out twin snorts at Sanji's antics; one a sound of annoyance, and another disgust. They both paused to glance at each other and Zoro noted that this time around Usopp didn't look quite as frightened; it seemed like a step in a better direction.

At the same time, when Zoro looked over, he could tell that Luffy was getting bored already, so he decided to speed everything up. "Hey Tashigi." He called out before pointing at each of them in turn. "This is Luffy- he's a demon and a royal pain in the ass." Luffy went from looking excited to pouting over the course of a second, but Zoro moved on before he could complain. "This is Usopp and he's a satyr." Usopp puffed out his chest a little bit. "And finally this is Sanji." Zoro glared at him. "And he's a fucking chicken."

"Why you-!" Sanji hissed and his wings, as small as they were, started fluffing up again; within seconds they were in each other's faces again. Before they could really get started though, Zoro felt a pain in his ear like it was about to be ripped off and his head was jerked to the side.

"Knock it off. Both of you." Nami snapped, not even close to wanting to deal with their shit. "Especially you Sanji." She glared down at him. "He's a human for fuck's sake. Just leave it alone."

Sanji wilted a little under her scolding and let out a subdued, "Yes, Nami-swan."

With that done, Nami let go of their ears, and turned to Tashigi. "Sanji's an angel." She explained, "And usually better behaved than this." She added, and he wilted even more, while Zoro just rubbed at his sore ear and glared a hole into the back of Nami's head. "Every0ne," she looked at Luffy and Usopp. "This is Tashigi. She and Zoro grew up together. This is her house so don't do anything too annoying."

Tashigi nodded. "Well, it's nice to meet you all." She said, being actually sincere about it. While just hours ago she'd been questioning her own sanity, now that she'd had time to adjust to the situation she was doing her best to just accept everything as it came up. So she had a satyr, demon, and angel in her kitchen now? Well it sounded like the beginning of a bad joke, but no problem. Probably.

Besides, after speaking with Nami for a while, she'd come to understand a little better that these guys, although they were certainly strange, were friendly for the most part. Although there were obviously some…cultural differences, she could admit that part of the problem from this morning was just that they'd gotten off on the wrong foot.

And, wanting to avoid any situations like this morning's, Tashigi was willing to go along with whatever made everyone happy.

"Ok then." Nami announced, clapping her hands together and taking charge of the situation like it was second nature to her. "Now that the introductions are done with, into the living room."

As she herded the group out of the kitchen, she turned to Sanji. "As a thanks for them helping us, I promised them dinner tonight." She shot him a coy look. "I assume that you can handle that, can't you Sanji?"

"Of course!" Sanji shouted before swooning. "Anything for Nami-swan~!"

"Good boy." Nami cooed before patting his face and leaving him in the kitchen to do what he did best.

Once the group was in the living room, they all sat in a sort of circle; Nami, Tashigi, and Usopp up on the couch, Zoro and Luffy sitting on the floor next to it, and Chopper and Kite stretched out on the floor. Chopper, to Zoro's surprise, seemed to actually be having a conversation with the dog- although he figured that it wasn't too strange considering that Chopper was part animal himself.

Tashigi, leaving Chopper and Kite alone, tried to break the ice with Luffy and Usopp. "You know, Nami told me that the two of you were curious about the human world?" she asked with a cautious smile. "And I know that Zoro isn't the most talkative guy, so if you have any questions, then feel free to ask me instead."

Zoro almost laughed at her mistake.

Ok, maybe he did laugh a little bit, but only because he knew how quickly her enthusiasm would fade the moment that he saw the shine in Luffy's eyes. He wondered how long it was take for Tashigi to regret her decision.

His bet was less than a minute.

* * *

><p>As it turned out, Tashigi lasted longer than Zoro had expected her to. Unlike Zoro who'd had to fend off Luffy's annoying questions on his own, Tashigi at least had Nami to act as a buffer, which meant (un)fortunately no poop questions for Tashigi.<p>

Still he ended up learning more about Usopp and Luffy's world through their questions than he had through Luffy's rambling. For one, they didn't have cars or any other motor vehicle where they came from- and the ones that they did have were super expensive and/or rare. It seemed as though the demon's world was made up of even more water than theirs, so most people either walked or traveled by ship. Nami briefly talked about something called a 'waver', but it seemed more like a jet ski than anything else.

The moment that Luffy expressed any interest in driving their truck, however, was when Tashigi and Zoro both put their foot down. At best Luffy would probably just break the old truck. At worst- Zoro shivered as he imagined the truck sticking out or the front of the house. No, it seemed safer to just keep all of them far, far away from any vehicles.

Since Sanji wasn't a part of their conversation, the only reminder that the man was still in the house was all of the noise and smells coming from the kitchen. Annoyingly enough, Zoro had to admit that the guy probably actually knew how to cook. He knew that he'd never say it to his face, but even his mouth had started watering at the smells that had started to come out of the kitchen.

Luffy, of course, had already hopped up once and charged into the kitchen, shouting for food.

"Stay the fuck outta here!" Sanji had roared back before Luffy could even step into the place. "Or else you won't eat!" And the speed at which Luffy had run away had left Zoro's head spinning as one moment he'd been gone, and the next Luffy was suddenly back by his side, an annoyed frown on his face. Zoro made a mental note about it. Anything that could keep Luffy in line was a good thing in Zoro's books. When Sanji had finally emerged from the kitchen with plates full of stir fry loaded down with vegetables and diced chicken, it had been a welcome sight.

Unsurprisingly, dinner too was a chaotic affair as well. As expected, Nami and Tashigi were favored with their portions, while Luffy also got an inhumanly large portion of food, and even Kite got a little bit to stave off her usual begging. The group sat in a circle again as they ate, with everyone leaving noticeable amount of space around Luffy. Not really thinking about why this might be, Zoro sat down next to him and noticed quite suddenly, that chunks of food seemed to just disappear from his plate.

It took a few times of this happening for him to not only realize that he wasn't just imagining it, but to also realize that the culprit was probably the demon sitting next to him with the chipmunk cheeks.

"Hey Luffy- are you seriously taking my food?" Zoro growled at him and Luffy shook his head, but it was obvious by the fact that he wouldn't even meet Zoro's gaze that the demon was guilty. "You little shit." Zoro growled again before latching forward and grabbing Luffy's face like earlier. This time, however, before Zoro even had the time to threaten him, Luffy's tongue darted out and he licked a long stripe up Zoro's palm.

Zoro hissed and withdrew his hand immediately as Luffy and the group around them dissolved into laughter. "That's what you get Zoro." Luffy laughed like the little prick that he was.

With revenge on the brain, Zoro's undirtied hand snaked forwards and grabbed Luffy's plate from his lax grip. With a flick of his wrist he slid Luffy's food onto his plate. "This is mine now." He said, tuning out Luffy's outraged cry. He began shoveling food into his mouth as quickly as he could while Luffy seemed torn between attacking him for his food and shouting at Sanji for more. In the end, the Sanji option seemed to win out due to the cook taking that moment to finally leave the kitchen. With a leap Luffy was on the blond's back, shouting at him for seconds.

With a roar Sanji flung the demon off, and Luffy landed on Usopp, whose plate flew out of his hand. Rice spilled all over the floor, and Kite was there in a flash, eating as quickly as possible.

"Kite!" Tashigi jumped up and immediately tried to drag her huge dog away from the spill to little avail. Meanwhile Usopp slapped Luffy outside the head.

"That was my food you ass!" the satyr hissed, even more annoyed when it was clear that Luffy wasn't paying any attention to him.

Instead his eyes were locked on the plate that Tashigi had left unprotected on the couch. Luffy's tail swished back and forth before Luffy jumped back onto the couch. He landed with a quiet thump on the couch, with one food on a couch cushion-

And the other in Nami's plate.

The ensuing screeches from both Nami and Sanji were loud enough that he had to clap his hands over top of his ears. Luffy, too focused on food to realize what he'd done, was blindsided by a punch to the head- courtesy of Nami. He toppled over the back of the couch, but was instantly accosted by Sanji- livid that Luffy had ruined dinner.

From Tashigi wrestling with Kite, to Usopp mourning his lost plate (and Chopper's tentative offers to share his own food), to Nami and Sanji tag teaming Luffy, it was without a doubt the most chaotic dinner he'd ever had. The scene probably would have given his peaceful and orderly master a heart attack, but oddly enough, Zoro didn't feel really upset or bothered by it all. In fact quite the opposite. He could feel a laugh bubbling up in his chest from all of the chaos.

Later on, Zoro would later reflect on how it was probably the most fun that he'd had in a while.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong>

So yeah, admittedly I haven't read the bible myself, but I know that angels aren't exactly friendly and aren't really the types of things that you want to mess with, but pop culture usually seem to make them a lot friendlier, so yeah, Zoro's a little off here.

And also, I never really thought about having to say this, but I felt the need to specify a little. Kite's name here is pronounced like key-te, since yeah, it's Japanese. Again, it's an odd and small thing, but I realized that I didn't want anyone thinking that these guys were calling their dog 'kite' or something XD

Anyways, thanks for reading, and I'll see y'all next week~


	5. Signs That She Might Just Be Into You

Well i had a bit of a crap week, and so I decided to make it a little better by making this chapter NamTash centric. Important stuff still happens, but yeah, I'm just hoping to drag a few more people back with me to the NamTash rowboat along the way~

No new warnings here

Anywho, enjoy~

* * *

><p>"Hello father?" Tashigi smiled as she spoke. "I'm sorry that I haven't called recently but how are you? Is everything still good over there?"<p>

It was comforting to hear her father's calm voice over the phone so she liked to call the dojo once or twice a week.

She sat curled up on her bed, and only spoke about nice and easy topics like the weather or the house or how Kitetsu was doing. She answered a few questions about Zoro too, since he was never one to call himself; he didn't even have a cellphone- in this day and age!

Halfway through talking about the man, she remembered, quite belatedly, that she needed to put in an order for more of his medication.

Koshiro noticed her paused and gently asked what the problem was.

"It's nothing." She said easily. "I just remember that Zoro was out of his medication. I swear, he's so unreliable." She laughed a little, but it was Koshiro's turn to be silent. Tashigi trailed off slowly, and there was silence. "Is there something wrong father?"

"Tashigi…" Koshiro started, sounding serious once again, "Please do that as soon as possible. You should know by now that that medication is very important."

Tashigi bowed her head a little, feeling at once a little ashamed at her father's tone and a little bitter. As annoying as it was, she felt like she had failed him in some way. "Of course, I'll do it right away." She responded mechanically, trying to not show her sudden feelings, but she must have failed because when Koshiro spoke again, it was to say,

"I did not mean to sound harsh. I am very proud of you Tashigi." She blinked at the words, but no response came to mind in time. "I know that Zoro can be a handful-" she snorted at his words and he chuckled himself at her reaction. "ok, that he is a handful, but he needs your help, even if he won't admit it himself, so please help him."

"Of course." Tashigi said quickly but with some more positive emotions leaking into her voice. "After all, he wouldn't even be able to find his way back home without me."

"Indeed. Now was there anything else that you wanted to talk about?" he asked and Tashigi hesitated for a moment before saying,

"Nothing really. There was a big storm around here a few days ago, but that's it." Oddly enough, she hadn't planned on mentioning that. Rather, she'd meant to say no, but the words had tumbled out of her mouth instead.

"Just a storm?" Something about Koshiro's tone was strange, but Tashigi didn't really notice.

"Yeah," she sighed. "But it was a bad one. It knocked out all of the power and had Kite barking up a storm." Tashigi paused again; for some reason, she kept wanting to mention Luffy and his group even though there was no way that she could have even _begun_ to explain the situation with them. "I'd never seen that much rain before. It was intense." She said instead.

"Is that so?" Again, the feeling that she needed to say something about that flared up, but she slammed the lid shut on it.

"Yep." She said, and there were a few seconds of silence before Koshiro responded.

"I see then." If anything he sounded…disappointed? Whatever.

"Yes, well I'm sorry father. I have to go now. I love you." She said quickly. She waited for him to say the same before hanging up. She sighed as she looked down at her cellphone. Had her deflections been that obvious? From the sound of it, he hadn't believed her at all.

But, she thought as she got up off her bed and stretched, there was nothing to be done about it. It wasn't like she could actually tell him about the situation- even if she'd omitted the fact of them being non humans.

…

Well it probably wasn't a big deal either way. The group had been staying with her and Zoro for several days now and the world hadn't ended yet. True to Nami's prediction, Luffy had decided that he liked it here and despite her initial fears, Tashigi had realized that she didn't actually have a problem with that. Despite how destructive their first dinner here had been, they weren't actually a bad group. If anything they were just …excitable.

Or, she amended as her thought was interrupted by a crash from downstairs followed by Usopp's raised voice, not. "Those guys." She muttered with a frown as she left her room and slammed the door behind her. "What is it this time?!" she shouted.

"Luffy broke another creepy cross." Usopp shouted back, with Luffy throwing in an insincere 'sorry!', and Tashigi pinched the bridge of her nose. In some other situation, she'd probably find the groups' aversion to all of the religious paraphernalia around the house amusing, or ironic in Luffy's case since the crosses did nothing more than make his skin crawl a little, but this was 3 broken crosses in the past few days, and while Mihawk certainly had a lot of them, he was bound to notice if half of the ones in his house were broken whenever he decided to come back.

Whatever. She'd deal with it. Instead of heading downstairs and facing that headache immediately, she went to the bathroom instead and rapped on the door a few times. "Who is it?" Nami's voice echoed from the other side of the door.

"Just me." Tashigi said back. "Sorry, I just need to get in there for a minute." She waited a few seconds before the door popped open. When she walked in she wasn't surprised to see that Nami was nowhere near the door. Nami, for good reason, always used spells to lock doors behind her; especially whenever she was around Sanji and Luffy since doors were liable to fly open at a moment's notice with the two. At least like this she could keep annoying people out.

Instead Nami stood in front of the mirror, wrapped up in a towel and with her hair still dripping wet, writing something on the surface of the glass; a trail of Magic followed her finger whenever it went. Small bubble-like balls floated around her head like satellites. Thankfully Tashigi was no longer nearly as bothered by Nami's very casual displays of magic as she'd been the first few times.

Nami smiled at her when she entered, but didn't look away from whatever that she was making. Tashigi smiled back and focused on using the rest of the space, since the bathroom was pretty large.

Tashigi focused instead on applying a little makeup to make herself look a little more presentable, and started brushing out her hair.

"Have you ever thought of growing it out?"

"Pardon?" she looked over to see Nami eyeing her.

"Your hair." Nami said this time. "It's so short and I'm wondering how you'd look with longer hair." She said easily before reaching over to Tashigi's side of the mirror and pressing a finger against the glass. Suddenly Tashigi was looking at herself with longer bangs and hair that went past her shoulders easily.

"Wow." Tashigi breathed as she leaned closer to take a look. "This is amazing." She hummed, turning her head left then right. The image followed her actions like a real reflection.

"Thanks." Nami grinned. "It's my mirage magic." She paused and cocked her head to the side. "I didn't think I'd shown it to you yet."

Tashigi shook her head and messed with a lock of hair, as amazed as ever by the number of things that Nami's Magic could do.

But longer hair, huh? Well, it wasn't like she'd never thought about it. She'd even considered going for it few times in the past, but she'd never actually done anything about it. She admitted privately though, that it looked nice. "That sounds like a lot of maintenance." Is what she ended up saying. She peeked over at Nami.

"What about yourself though?" she pointed a finger back. "Yours is almost as short as mine."

"I am growing it out." Nami said easily. "Just like my sister." She shrugged. "Short hair is nice, but I want to try something else too."

"You have a sister?"

"Yep." Nami touched the mirror in a different spot and suddenly a blue haired girl was smiling at the two of them. "Wait," Nami said with a sudden cheeky smile. She twisted her finger a little and the smile on the girl's face twisted into a bored looking frown. Tashigi had to bite back a smile at how the expression suddenly looked like something that Zoro would have. "That's better." Nami declared before saying to Tashigi. "This is my older sister- Nojiko."

"You're a younger sibling too?" Tashigi asked with a smile. "Somehow I'm surprised. You seemed like an only child to me."

Nami shook her head. "Actually only Luffy and I have siblings. He has two older brothers himself." She said then laughed at the slightly horrified look on Tashigi's face as she visualized two more Luffys running around. "Trust me, they're not as bad as he is. They're much calmer. I actually wouldn't have guessed that they were related until I saw the three of them eat together." She said the last part with a grimace.

"You know," Tashigi said conversationally, "I actually had a sister myself. Although she died some time ago." Nami looked sympathetic but didn't say 'I'm sorry' or any of those other things that people normally said. Tashigi wondered if she'd lost someone too.

"Zoro actually knew her a lot better than I did though." She continued in a more thoughtful tone. "He says that we look similar." More like identical. To the point where Zoro used to slip up and call her Kuina sometimes, only to get all red faced and angry whenever he did.

She cut the rest of that thought off and finally remembered that she'd come in here to freshen up. Now she just had to go into town. On a whim she turned to Nami and asked, "I'm about to go into town, would you like to come with?"

Nami thought about it for a second before she nodded. "It'll be good to get away for a while." She decided.

"Ok then," Tashigi nodded back, "then we can go right-" she choked a little when Nami just dropped her towel to the floor and started to get dressed. She turned to look away so quickly that her neck twinged in response. Tashigi stared at the door with a bright red face as Nami changed, forcing herself to think nothing of the act. She'd grown up in a dojo where there were few women, but she'd heard that women changing around each other was normal, unlike some of the men who would pitch a fit if another man stripped around them. So if Nami treated it like it was nothing, then she decided that she would do the same.

Tashigi jumped when Nami slapped her on the back and said, "I'll see you by the door then." After that Tashigi was left with a few seconds to gather herself. She shook her head a little when she saw how red she was in the mirror. You're being ridiculous, she told herself and slapped her cheeks a little for good measure. There was no use in getting flustered since Nami hadn't meant anything by her actions…

Probably.

0o0o0

"This is so strange." Nami said with a little smile on her face as she sat in the passenger seat with her legs tucked up against her chest. "I almost wish that we had some of these in our world." The window was rolled down so that the wind was in her face and blowing through her hair.

Tashigi chuckled a little from the driver's seat. "I'm honestly surprised that you guys don't have cars." she admitted. "From everything I've heard you guys seem pretty advanced."

Nami shrugged. "Most of the time we don't need that sort of stuff." She admitted. "What we can't do on our own, Magic can do for us, so there's not a lot of need for things like cars. Hell, even I can hop around myself when I have enough power."

"'Hop around'?"

"Teleport. Kind of." Nami clarified. "There are plenty of spells that will let people travel quite a distance and any witch can learn them with enough experience." She smiled. "That's actually how we were planning on getting around once we were in the human world. I just didn't plan on getting so drained so early on." Nami sighed. "But once I'm back in good shape it'll be a breeze." She declared with a wink.

Tashigi nodded along with her. By now, if Nami said that she could do something then Tashgi believed her. At this point she was mostly interested in just how far these her Magic could go. Honestly, she was a little envious of how useful it was.

"Still, our worlds seem pretty similar." Tashigi noted as she drummed along to the beat of a song on the radio on the dash of the truck. "Even when you talk about things that I've never heard about, I can still get a good gist of what you're talking about."

Nami nodded again. "Well, supposedly, a few centuries ago, it was supposedly easier to jump between the worlds. Back then anyone could come to and leave the human world as they pleased so there was some cultural sharing."

"What changed?"

"I don't really know." Nami admitted with a languid shrug. "Maybe our Magic got weaker, or maybe people forgot how to do it properly. I can't even say how long it took me to find the proper spell that would even get a group of five over here." Nami sent her a cheeky look. "Although this place still doesn't beat where I'm from. You should come over sometime and take a look around." She offered and Tashigi smiled a little.

0o0o0

Tashigi sighed as she felt shrewd eyes lock onto her. "Just act normal." Were her last words to Nami before they were descended upon by the always pleasant Mrs. Pearlston.

"Tashigi!" The older woman cooed, sweeping towards the two of them in her billowing dress. "It's so good to see you again. And you brought a friend!" Her eyes darted towards Nami with clear interest shining in them. "Why aren't you lovely dear?"

Nami watch the woman back with bored eyes and Tashigi had to answer for her. "Yes, well," she fidgeted a little. "This is my friend Nami- she's from out of town." She said, as if it weren't obvious. For one thing, there was probably only a handful of people under the age of 40 living in the area, partly because the place was so far away from any schools. Second of all, in a place where people dressed modestly and simply, Nami stood out even more in her minishirt and revealing top. The bright blue tattoo on her arm probably didn't help either.

"Well, I hope that she's enjoying her visit." Pearlston said in the way that older people had of talking about a person like they weren't there. "We don't get too many new people around here."

"Yes, yes." Tashigi nodded before quickly cutting to the chase. "We were actually planning on stopping by here and then heading to one of the outlets, so unfortunately we don't have much time around here." Tashigi tried to look sincere, she really did. Mrs. Pearlston looked down her nose at the two of them, which was amazing considering that they were both taller than her, before the smile flitted across her face again.

"Of course deary." She laughed. "I don't want to be rude. Go and have fun!" she shooed at the two of them and Tashigi quickly pulled Nami away before Pearlston could come up with anything else to say.

"Well," Tashigi huffed dryly. "That's one obstacle out of the way." Nami didn't respond, but continued to follow her as Tashigi dipped into a few places. Tashigi tried to ignore some of the stares going their way, but at always it was difficult; maybe even more difficult than normal without Zoro there to deflect some of the stares.

She realized that more people were probably focused on Nami than herself. For one thing, Nami was attractive- like really attractive. She drew people's eyes like a limelight and Tashigi knew that Nami was several spots higher than her on the hotness scale; which she didn't mind.

Secondly, Nami's personality was just much louder than her own. She stood out without having to even try, and she was shrewder than even Tashigi had thought that she'd been. Tashigi had never seen someone haggle so many store owners so efficiently.

"Stop it." Tashigi finally said with a swat to the arm. In the other hand she carried bags full of clean products, soaps, and just general stuff that she'd gotten at heavily discounted prices. "I have to come back and see these people again. They'll hate me if you keep this up." She tried to sound like she really cared but Nami just rolled her eyes.

"Yes I can see how much it's tearing you up inside." She snarked back before shrugging, "Besides, they're making up some pretty interesting rumors about us- or me- so I think that a little haggling is the least of your image problems." She smiled a little and Tashigi saw a flash of amber in her eyes.

"You can really hear what they're whispering about?" Tashigi asked, trying not to sound so surprised. Nami nodded.

"Yep. If I focus then I can sharpen my hearing just a bit. Wanna know what they're saying? It's some pretty interesting stuff."

A part of Tashigi wanted so say no, and the word was even bubbling up in the back of her throat, but it quickly turned into a yes.

"Well there seem to be a few people who think that Zoro's cheating on you with me." Nami ticked off a finger and Tashigi made a disgusted noise.

"Well him and I are having relationship problems after all." She said, fighting to keep the straight look on her face. "Didn't you know?"

"Apparently. Although one person did seem to think that _you_ were the one actually cheating." Nami added, fighting to keep her own composure. "Apparently your and Zoro's relationship and my being here makes you a lesbian?"

Tashigi couldn't keep in her laugh. "That one's pretty funny actually. And here I thought that this was a conservative place." She snorted while Nami hmmed next to her. She realized after a few seconds that Nami had used the word 'lesbian' especially and wondered if that was just another one of the coincidences of their world. "Although I have to ask, is that sort of thing common over in your world? Lesbians and all that?"

Nami glanced out her at the side of her eye but didn't respond, save for a quirk of her lips.

Okay, Tashigi decided. Now _that_ had to mean something.

"Wait, what does that mean? Nami- Nami!"

0o0o0

"Just send in the order as soon as you can, please." Tashigi said to the elderly man behind the counter. The local pharmacist, Darwin, nodded at her from behind his round rimmed spectacles.

"It should be here in a few days." He told her in a voice like a dry whisper.

Tashigi found herself smiling naturally around the older man. "Thank you." she said, and actually meant it. She liked Mr. Darwin. He was kind but didn't ask about her personal business. "I'll be back in a few days then." She said and went to find Nami who was a few isles away looking at beauty products. She was staring at the surface of a mirror, and Tashigi could have sworn that she'd seen something on the surface, but Nami swiped her hand across it before she could be sure.

"You done now?" Nami asked, a hint of irritation creeping into her tone.

"Yes." Tashigi nodded, although she was surprised at the sudden hostility. "Although I'm sorry if all of this is boring you. I distinctly remember telling you that it was pretty boring around here."

Nami stared at her for a moment before sighing and running her hand back through her hair. "It's not that."

Tashigi cocked an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

Nami squashed her frown. "Yeah, trust me. It has nothing to do with this trip. There's just some stuff happening back home." Her tone was light hearted, but it was clear from the look on her face that this wasn't something that she was willing to say more about.

Tashigi frowned but let it drop, not willing to spoil the good mood between them.

"Well, whenever then, I'm all done here then."

Nami smiled at few before clapping her on the shoulder. "Well let's go then. I specifically remember you saying something about taking me to do more shopping?"

Tashigi frowned. "Really? I mean there is an outlet mall an hour and a half away from here but are you sure that you don't want to go back?"

Nami nodded and stretched her arms above her head. "Of course! How could I go back home when there's shopping to be done?" she led the way out of the store, and it wasn't until they had gotten back into the car that Tashigi realized something.

"Wait," she said, starting up the car as she did so. "Do you even have money? Like human money?"

She got a smile that made her uneasy and a 'don't worry about it' from Nami and Tashigi sighed and shook her head.

0o0o0

"Hey Tashigi- I think that I'm going to go get a drink before we go." Nami said as Tashigi loaded their bags in the back seat of the truck. Tashigi had ended up paying for most of it, but Nami had not only found them great deals, but gotten a lot of the prices down. Now Tashigi had no idea what she'd do with some many outfits, but she would come up with something later.

Tashigi nodded in Nami's direction but didn't look away from how she was arranging everything.

"Ok- I'll wait until then." She said, and Nami turned around before walking back to the closest store. Since it was getting dark the crowds had thinned out considerably so it was easy for her to find a deserted corner. She crouched down against a wall before digging around in her bag.

She withdrew a small snail from the bag. Once exposed to the open air, the Den Den Mushi uncurled slightly, and raised its eyestalks and blinked at her. Nami rubbed the top of its head before reaching for the shell on its back. She unclipped it before clicking a button on it.

Immediately the snail began making a 'bura bura' sound before there was another click and a worried voice asked, "Nami? Is that you?"

"Who else Nojiko?" Nami asked, flicking her tongue out at the snail with its cross expression.

"You little-!" Nojiko hissed at her before Nami cut her off with a quick,

"Yeah, yeah, I'll apologize later Nojiko. How are things over there?"

There was a huff on Nojiko's side. "Worse." The snail's little brow creased. "Believe it or not, people have managed to notice that Luffy is missing, and there are some people that aren't too pleased about it."

Nami made a rude noise in the back of her throat because she knew exactly who her sister was talking about. "When are they ever pleased about anything?" she said before sighing. "Besides, the farther Luffy is away from all of that mess, the better for everyone else."

Nojiko hummed. "Sure. I'll let you explain that to Ace and Sabo the next time that you get back." Nami winced at the idea and Nojiko happily continued on. "Did you know that this was the first place that they came to look for their little brother after learning that you guys were gone?" The sarcasm in Nojiko's voice was reaching critical levels. "Yeah, explaining that my little sister may have dragged their little brother off somewhere went over pretty well with them."

"…Sorry Nojiko." Nami sighed again. She didn't want to have to imagine how her next conversation with those two would be like. While she hadn't been lying when she'd told Tashigi that the two of them were easier to manage than Luffy was, they were justifiably protective of Luffy's wellbeing; especially with all of the political unrest happening. She knew that if she weren't Luffy's friend then they probably would have tried coming after them already so she was thankful for that at least. "But is there anything else bad happening?"

"Just more rifts are opening." Nojiko said, the worried look on the snail betraying her own neutral tone. "And it seems that more and more demons are trying to jump through them cause shit in the human world."

"And no one's trying to stop them?" Nami hissed.

"Of course they're trying, but you should know how quickly that 'Reclaim' movement is gaining traction." Nojiko snapped back. "There are even some officials that are advocating for opening the rifts up wider and encouraging movement over to the human world." She huffed.

Nami took a moment to lean her head against the stone wall behind her. "…well that's not good then."

* * *

><p>sniffs the air/ is that a plot I smell in the distance? Yes? No? Well there's only one way to find out!

So I'll see you guys next week then~!


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